Slow Burn Summer
by ThreeJays
Summary: When the unthinkable happens, it's never the thing you expected.  It's the thing you never even thought you should be afraid of. - Damon/Elena  deals with Stefan/Elena   Post 2x22 Fic.  Rated M for language, violence, and adult stuff in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own this show. If I did, I sure the heck wouldn't be waiting THREE months to get back to it (weeps)**

_A/N: Set a few days or so after 2x22. As per the title, this will be a SLOW build to Damon and Elena. There will be some Stefan/Elena because it exists. There will be angst, because I don't know how to write them without it. And this will probably be my longest fic – I'm guessing 10 chapters. I'm also rating it M from the get go, because in my world, Damon drops the f-bomb. The M rating does not guarantee sex. Could happen – who knows._

_Lastly, I realize there are a billion other hiatus filler fics out there so I realize there could be next to no one interested in reading mine. I'm trying not to read any of them (since I'm writing one) but I'm sure there are plenty of brilliant ones available. I apologize in advance for any similarities (unintentional) and I promise I won't keep updating if the interest just isn't there._

_But if the interest is there…PLEASE REVIEW! I initially held back thinking everyone is on hiatus-fic overload, but I figured I should post first and leave that up to all of you. So make your voice heard._

**Day Four – Elena**

I remember when there were no vampires. Or witches or werewolves. I remember when I wasn't just normal: I was a realist. I was the girl who waved off any bumping in the night, knowing with absolute certainty that a furnace or an aging pipe was always to blame.

I was wrong.

I scroll through my email with a sigh. Nada. We've contacted every vampire Damon's ever known to no avail. We've tried witches and locator spells, we even tried having Tyler sniff for him. Literally.

I push my laptop away and scan the wall of maps beside my dresser. Red pushpins mark all the cities that appear in Klaus's history, though that history is being patched together from bits and pieces of at least a hundred different books and journals.

There are forty-two pins already. Even with the way Damon drives, this is going to take some time.

"Where are you, Stefan?" I ask, and then, of course, I start to cry.

Sometimes, I'm not sure I'll ever stop crying. Today I get tired of waiting, and head to the bathroom still sniffling. I've got my last clean pair of sweatpants and one of Jeremy's t-shirts in my arms.

I drop them on the counter and face down my burning eyes and sticky tear-streaked cheeks in the mirror. Chapped lips and shadowed eyes stare back at me. Four days of barely eating has also left me looking a little gaunt and sickly.

"You used to be pretty," I chide myself.

Ten minutes in the shower don't do much to improve my looks, but at the very least I smell better. And I've stopped crying.

It's a start. And I can do something with a start.

I square my shoulders like I'm going into battle, pointing my hairbrush at myself in the mirror.

"You will go downstairs and eat something. You will say things to Alaric and Jeremy and you will pretend that you are perfectly fine."

I nod at myself. It's a good plan. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow, too. Lather, rinse, repeat until everyone in this house believes I am coping. Maybe even me.

I open my bathroom door and instantly frown. My room is different. Someone's been in here.

My bed is made. The pile of clothes spilling out of my laundry basket is gone. The half-eaten toast from this morning and all my empty cups have been cleared from my end table.

I realize this can only mean one thing.

Damon's back.

I cross the room, eager for an update and crack open my bedroom door. Sounds of explosions on the television drift up the stairs. Video games. Muttered boy voices. Laughter. Not Damon's, though. Jeremy and Alaric, if I had to guess.

I head downstairs, stopping midway down with my nostrils flaring. Something's cooking. Not take-out Chinese or ramen noodles, either, I'm talking about food. Real, honest-to-God food.

Alaric and Jeremy are playing video games in the living room, a pile of journals and research books temporarily forgotten on either side of them. I leave them be and head past the open basement door, where I can hear the washer whirring away. Even from here I can see that the kitchen counters are clutter free and freshly wiped.

Damon Salvatore. Capable of ripping off heads. Incapable of leaving a dirty dish on the counter.

I round the corner, finding him leaned into the open fridge, an assortment of neatly arranged pans and dishes around the stove.

"I thought you were going to hit D.C. before you came back," I say, finger-combing my damp hair.

"I did," he replies.

Then he shuts the fridge and crosses to the mixer with a small carton of cream. I cock my head and watch him. A year ago, he wanted to rip me open and drink me dry. Now, he's cooking in my kitchen, red silicon spatula in one hand and one of my mom's old gingerbread men dish towels slung over his shoulder.

"I've been to five cities in the last four days, actually," he adds, a little sulkily. "I figured one night's sleep in my own bed wouldn't kill anyone."

"You don't need my permission," I say.

"You'd hand out hall passes if you could get away with it," he argues, mixing and flipping and doing all sorts of cooking things that mystify me.

"So, did you find anything?" I ask, my voice small and wooden.

"Nada."

I sigh, sinking onto an island stool. "We have to try something else, Damon. Another locator spell. What about all those servers of Trevor's? Would they still be—

"Stop," Damon says, holding up his spatula like a crossing guard.

"What?"

"I veto these questions. In fact, I veto all Stefan-related communication until you have something to eat that doesn't come in a can with a portly chef on the front." He looks up at me, eyes sweeping my face and body in a quick scan. "Are you sleeping at all?"

"I'm sleeping" I protest, but my shoulders sag as soon as the words leave my mouth. "Not well, but I'm doing it. I bite my lip, tears welling in my eyes. "We have to find him, Damon. It just doesn't make sense. He wouldn't do this. Not ever."

"Thirty minutes, Elena," he says, and there's a weariness in his voice that I didn't catch before. "I mean it. Talk about the weather, gas prices, hell, talk about lip gloss for all I care. Just not this."

I shake my head and draw a shuddering breath. "What do you want from me, Damon? Do you want me to sit here and play house and just pretend this isn't happening?"

Damon crosses the kitchen in a blur and then he's leaned over the counter, looking right at me. "Do you think I go one second without thinking about this, Elena? My brother is lost. I wake up every day knowing that, and knowing that it's _killing_ you."

My vision is blurred by tears, but I take a breath and stare hard into his eyes, pushing all my heartbreak and fear into him. I know it's wrong. But he's the only one who's strong enough to take it.

"I _will_ bring him back to you, Elena," he tells me, all velvet voice and flinty eyes.

"You can't promise me that," I say, my voice breathy and shuddering.

"I can promise you I'll die trying."

"Don't you _dare_ promise me that," I say, practically snarling at him.

"Then don't _you_ dare lose yourself in this," he says, palming my face with both hands. "Stefan wouldn't want this. Not ever."

I nod, and my tears slide down, slipping beneath his thumbs. I manage a tremulous smile.

He returns it and for the span of a single breath I feel safe.

Fearless.

He lets me go and the spell is broken. Alaric and Jeremy roar in laughter as something explodes on the TV. Damon's back at the stove. Adjusting things. Fussing.

A timer rings and he flips off the mixer and opens the oven, pulling out a steaming tray of…oh, my God. Homemade macaroni and cheese. My stomach growls and my mouth waters at the sight of the golden cheesy goodness.

Before I can say another word he pulls the lid off of a skillet on the stove and that's when I realize what I'm smelling. Chicken Marsala.

No one makes macaroni and cheese and Chicken Marsala. And any possible coincidence that could have created such a combination vanishes when he uncovers a plate beside the stove. Three BLT sandwiches are lined up in neat triangles.

Apparently, I've stepped into the Twilight Zone. Dinner tonight will include every favorite dish I've ever had.

Mouth watering, I eye him suspiciously. "How did you know this?"

"Know what?" he asks, all innocence as he piles a plate, turning it this way and that. Adding a little garnish.

"This," I say, gesturing at my feast. "These are my _favorite_ foods, Damon. Which you obviously know or you wouldn't be cooking them. Have you been plotting this? Have you talked to Jeremy?"

"I _have_ talked to Jeremy. More than once. Sometimes we have _whole_ conversations; it's all very sinister."

"Stop it," I say. "I just don't need you plotting how to baby me with my brother."

"Don't look at me. I had nothing to do with this," Jeremy says, appearing in the doorway with Alaric just behind him. He looks at the stove like an underfed gorilla. "But for the record, I'm cool with it."

"Me too. Where are the plates?" Alaric asks.

"In the cabinet," Damon says, narrowing his eyes. "Which you would know if either of you dicks had ever washed a dish in this house."

"We weren't expecting a visit from June Cleaver," Alaric says.

Damon sets the plate in front of me and I could sooner resist breathing than eating, it looks that good. I try the macaroni and cheese first. It's ridiculous. It's creamy and cheesy and oh my God, I would make love to these noodles if I could.

"How did you learn to make this?" I demand after moaning my way through three or four bites.

"I ate a culinary academy," Damon shrugs. Off my glare, he holds up his hands. "Kidding! Look, it's not all wild orgies and killing sprees. The eighties were boring. I went to school a lot."

"You need to get bored more often," Jeremy says, eating a piece of chicken directly out of the frying pan.

"No, he doesn't," Ric says, piling a plate high. "He drinks all my scotch when he's bored now."

"Well, you shouldn't drink in front of your kiddos anyway, _Daddy_," Damon returns.

In the background, I can hear the three of them going back and forth like this. I'm too lost in the bliss of Chicken Marsala Nirvanah to follow. By the time I look up again, Alaric and Jeremy have retreated to the living room with their plates. And Damon is fiddling with a new one.

"This was awesome," I say. "But I'm totally stuffed, so we really should talk."

"Sixteen minutes left. Besides, you still haven't had dessert."

"Damon, I couldn't eat another bite," I say, pushing the plate away. Remembering that this isn't the time for long leisurely meals.

"I think I can change your mind."

No, he can't. Every minute we sit here arguing over dessert, Stefan is out there. With Klaus.

"Damon, we need to talk about our plan. This isn't working."

"No, it's not. And God knows I've given it the old college try," he says, turning around and sliding a new plate in front of me.

It's perfection. Layer after layer of golden cake, ruby red strawberries and perfect little dollops of freshly whipped cream.

"Strawberry shortcake," I breathe, the memory of my mother so fresh that I can nearly see her slicing berries by the sink. "Damon, how did you…"

"I pay attention," he says.

Bit of an understatement. I dug inside your mind while you were sleeping seems more likely. I glare at him, accusation in my eyes.

"If you must destroy the magic, _Elena_, I pilfered your recipe boxes. This one was extra worn and dirty, and since your name was jotted at the bottom of the card, I figured it would be a hit."

I swallow hard, remembering a thousand nights on our front porch. Just the four of us: Me, Jeremy, Mom and Dad. We'd watch cars drive by, nothing more than the happy sound of forks scraping plates to break the silence.

"You figured right," I admit, but then I push my memories away.

Because I don't have time for this. I don't have time for anything happy. I sigh down at the plate.

"You're not going to eat it?" he asks, wearing a hurt puppy look I can't believe he thinks I'll buy.

Except that I am buying it. A little.

"I don't feel right diving into dessert with all this going on," I protest weakly.

Damn, it looks good though. All light and fluffy and tempting.

Damon leans in behind me, smelling like clean laundry and something I can put my finger on. "Just one bite?"

"Fine," I sigh, as if he needs to twist my arm. As if I would have just sat here staring at it if he'd left me alone.

I take a bite.

It's crazy good. Good enough that he doesn't have to say anything else for me to take a second bite. Or a third. Before I know it, the plate is empty and I realize Damon's sitting next to me, chin on hands, smirk on face.

"You don't have to be so smug," I tell him.

"Are you kidding? Have you met me?" he asks and I try to scowl, but his grin makes it hard.

I poke him with my fork instead.

Damon lunges for me, tripping over the stool. He slams onto his elbows on the counter and I laugh out loud. It's a strange sound and my hand flies to my mouth, my eyes going round with shock.

He grins crookedly at me, but whatever comment was ready on his lips dies when we hear a distinct buzzing.

His phone.

Damon pulls out his phone while I suck in a tight breath. I hold that breath in my lungs, watching him push buttons, watching his eyes scan through the message.

Damon's face is like a book. One with very large print. And right now it's screaming _Bad News._

"Is it Stefan?" I ask, my voice a tiny, frail thing slipping past my strawberry-sweet lips.

"No," he says, swallowing hard. "But they found a girl. Several of them, actually."

-TBC-


	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own this show. If I did, I sure the heck wouldn't be waiting THREE months to get back to it (weeps)**

_A/N: It's official. The people who read my fic are the NICEST PEOPLE IN THE UNIVERSE. I tried to reply to you guys personally, but has issues and kept telling me the links were all bad and old. Poop!_

_And I really wanted to write you all notes to tell you each individually that I appreciate it. You are all just wonderful and I'm truly grateful. Thank you all. But, I must say that some of you guys completely overwhelm me with your kindness and constant support. So, since I can't send personal notes tonight (ARGH!), an extra special squishy thank-you hug goes out to Crimson-Kiss 17, Ciara2531, romancerevival, FinnFiona, LokYa, carchaseterror, Ariadne's Web, toffeenutlatte, and fortheloveofdelena. I'm sure I'm forgetting someone. Lots of someones. You're all just so darned nice._

_So….why don't we check in with Damon's POV this chapter? ;-) Yes, yes, let's do that. And please review! I promise to thank you with real responses as soon as lets me!_

_**NOTE: In my universe, everyone is pulling together to get through this mess. I think all the craziness that went down will have everyone kind of banding together – so you will see characters interact that might not typically interact on the show. Hope that doesn't make you crazy.**_

_And *ducks* I'm really sorry, but it'll probably be Wednesday before the next chapter's up. Company in today and then a booked Monday. So sorry!_

**Day Eleven – Damon POV**

Son. of. a. bitch.

One order. I give that mangy, flea-bitten werewolf a _single_ responsibility and he's too busy trying to get into Miss Vampire USA's pants to bother doing it right.

Mind you, he _asked_ to help. I saved his girlfriend by throwing my arm into his mouth, after all.

So, I asked. Because really how could _anyone_ fuck this up?

_There's an email from Klaus that Elena can NOT see," _I said._Steal her phone and her computer_. _Handcuff her to the porch. I don't care what you do, just make sure she doesn't see that email._

Tyler sounded so damned eager, I could practically _hear_ his tail wagging.

_I'm on it_, he said.

Yeah, well he wasn't fucking _on it_. He was out on some adventure date with Blondie. Information that would have been helpful to know _ten minutes ago _when I called him instead of thirty seconds ago when he texted me to let me know he was only twenty minutes out.

_Only._

Of course this would have to be the day I'm robbing a blood bank two counties over. And Ric and Jeremy are off at Duke picking up another bazillion books that won't do a damn bit of good.

Who else was I going to call? Bonnie? Right. She'd light Stefan on fire long distance.

So, that leaves me pushing my engine to the red line down sixty miles of badly paved two-lane highway.

I roar into Mystic Falls with my pedal to the floor, doing Mach 6 past an elementary school. Perfect. I'll probably hit a second grader and en route to save Elena from viewing all the lovely gory images attached to Klaus's email.

It's not that I don't think she can stomach a bit of carnage. But one of those pictures includes a face shot of Stefan, blood and god knows what else dripping off his chin.

I brake hard in front of Casa Gilbert, yanking the steering wheel so that my car slides against the curb with a squeal of tires. I've got the door open before the engine quits grumbling and I'm on the stairs to the porch before my keys are back in my pocket.

She doesn't answer when I knock. Which means it's too late. The damage is done.

So help me God, I'm going to put that fucking dog to sleep.

I turn the knob and stand on the rug inside the door, listening intently. She's in her bathroom upstairs. Not the kind of place I'd normally burst in on Elena, but desperate times call for…well, today they call for crazy people with boundary issues, so I'm the guy.

I'm up the flight of stairs and through her bedroom, wincing at the images blazing on her computer monitor. I focus in on the close up of Stefan. Is that skin? Yep, that's a ribbon of skin dripping out of my baby brother's mouth.

_Tidy work, Stefan._

I minimize the picture and then Elena coughs and retches in the bathroom. I zip to the bathroom door like a magnet, palms pressed to the wood. Between the more unsavory bits, I hear something else.

She's crying. And the pain in those soft sobs cuts through me like teeth. It always does with her.

I bear down on the door handle and then pause, reminding myself that she locked it for a reason. Forcing myself to think about the last time she wasn't ready to forgive me.

No. No, I can't fuck this up again.

I rest my forehead on the wood, aching every time I hear her heave.

"Elena. It's me," I say softly.

No response. Just muted, desperate cries. And one more bout with the porcelain god. God, this is killing me.

"Elena, let me in."

No response to that either.

"Can I come in?" I ask again, careful to keep my tone light. Gentle.

Silence answers me.

Okay. Respect the boundaries. I'll give it two minutes.

One Mississippi, two Mississippi…Oh, fuck it. She didn't say no and I've stood out here at least, what? Twenty seconds now? She knows I don't have the patience of Job.

I twist the knob and the lock pops easily under my grip. Then I see her, tiny little thing on a big tile floor, one hand holding back her hair while she dry heaves into the toilet, sobbing in between her body's efforts to purge.

I snag a hair band, a washcloth, and a cup of water from the sink. Water and washcloth placed beside her, I take over hair duty, surprised when she makes no effort to stop me. I smooth it into a quick ponytail at the nape of her neck.

Then I sit there, crouched behind her like a baseball catcher waiting for…well, nothing good, obviously. This isn't really my forte, comforting girls in the midst of emotional breakdowns. I tend to be the _bringer_ of the breakdown.

God, life was easier when I was an evil dick.

"I'm here," I say, which seems pretty obvious and pointless.

But apparently it helps. After another short round, Elena's body seems satisfied to be done puking. She closes the lid on the toilet and covers her face, her sniffles growing louder as her shoulders shake.

And hell, I don't know what I should do, but I know I can't sit here one more second and not touch her. I scoot forward, fingers just barely grazing her shoulders.

"Is that…him?" she asks. "Is it Stefan?"

Well seeing as there was a mug shot of him—wait a minute. Is it possible that she only saw the other ones? I mean they were bad, but Stefan wasn't in them. Except that last one. Had she not pulled that one up yet?

"Do you think it was Stefan?" she asks again.

It was still loading. The last picture must have still been loading when she sprinted for the toilet. Which proves there is a God, after all.

Elena looks over her shoulder at me, waiting for an answer.

I've never wanted to lie to her so badly in my life. Not even when I killed Jeremy. My whole chest crushes when I open my mouth. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure he was involved."

She shakes her head, another sob ripping out of her. I hold onto her upper arms. Not hard. Just so that she knows I've got her. For whatever the hell that's worth.

"How couldn't I see this in him?" she cries softly. "I _loved_ him. I _touched_ him. I let him do things….God…" her words dissolve into sobs and I'm definitely good with that. I don't need a play by play of the _things_ Stefan's done to Elena. Being in the bedroom down the hall was more than enough, thanks.

"Was this who he was?" she asks. "All this time, _this_ is who I was really dating."

"Stefan's a vampire, Elena. This isn't _who_ he is, this is _what_ he can be if he loses control. Think about the special hell I put you through over the last year."

"No," she says, lifting a shaking hand. "This is different. You did terrible things. You killed people. I know that. But you didn't _finger paint_ the walls with your victims' blood. It's sick, Damon. I can't—

She cuts herself off, shaking her head and looking a little green again.

And there isn't a damn thing I can say. Stefan's penchant for playing with his food is disturbing to _me_. And I eat blood.

"We're screwed up," I shrug. "Vampires in general. We're like a giant genetic fuck-up. Physically, we're predators, plain and simple. Except that we're all completely preoccupied with what we used to be. Every vampire I know is at war with his instincts in one way or another."

She crosses her arms. Angry. Defiant. "So, what's that supposed to mean. Stefan's instincts are stronger? Sicker?"

"Stefan's always been wound up, Elena," I say. "His instincts are just intense. Even as a little kid, he was uptight. Trust me, had Prozac been around in the 1800's, my mother would have poured those pills down his throat."

She rolls her eyes, arms still crossed. "And meanwhile you were the angel child?"

"Hell no," I tell her. "I don't think they make a medicine that would have helped them deal with me."

She cracks a smile. Half of one, really, but I should get points on some cosmic scale for that, even if it does only last two seconds. The frown that replaces it looks oceans deep.

"I keep thinking of Greta," she says. She told us she wasn't lost. What if Stefan is like that? What if he doesn't want to be saved?"

I lean back against the tub. "Trust me, he wants to be saved."

"You don't know that," she argues, wearing her stubbornness like a pretty pin.

I roll my eyes. "Stefan has _you_, Elena. And you're a game changer. Trust me on this one."

She looks away from me then. Of course. We know all the steps to _this_ square dance. Promenade to the right and do-si-do around the unrequited love.

Elena stands up, heading for her toothbrush. I leave her to it, slipping back into her room.

"Are you leaving?" she asks, looking up at me with big, shimmery eyes. The kind that belong on Disney characters. My throat goes dry and my heart does annoying flippy things.

"No," I say. "I'll be here."

I close the door and consider all the ways I could end myself. Because, really? This starry-eyed heart-fluttering bullshit is getting tiresome.

It's not supposed to be happening anymore. It's supposed to be fixed. I've done the whole sobfest deathbed confession. All the self-help gurus on daytime TV say that's the kind of thing that will get you back in control. Confronting the truth. Admitting your weakness. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, well Dr. Phil needs a fucking disclaimer. Something like: _Your experience may vary_.

This is _not_ what I call in control. I'm still bat shit crazy for this girl. I can't stop thinking about her for a damn minute. For every three days I spend searching for my brother, I spend one day driving home because, and I'm not even shitting you with this, I need to _see _her.

Yeah, So Oprah's experts can take their accountable, empowering bullshit back. I'm not buying it.

I flop down sideways on Elena's bed. And yeah, there's a pillow. So, maybe I give it a sniff. Because I am _that_ much of a pussy.

"What the fuck are you doing?" I growl softly, softly enough that she won't hear me over the sink.

The bathroom door clicks and thank God for vampire speed because I'm up, busying myself with the computer by the time the door swings open.

Elena looks better. Clean, dry-eyed. Granted, her ponytail's a little too tight and leaning off to one side, but she's functioning on all wavelengths now.

"Better?" I ask.

"A little. Thanks," she says, and I smile at her.

I click onto the pictures, careful to keep the laptop screen turned away.

"You don't have to shield me, you know," she says. "I can handle them."

Oh, yeah. In the world where clinging to your toilet whilst puking your guts up is _handling_ things. But I'm smart enough not to say that.

"Klaus is baiting you," I say instead, not meeting her eyes. "He's love it if you suffered over these images over and over again. You want to give him that satisfaction, be my guest."

She lifts her chin but sits down on her bed across from me. Point , me. Then she purses her lips, looking first at her misplaced, rumpled pillow and then at me, eyes narrowed with suspicion. Well, shit. Point, Elena.

I double up my focus on the pictures. There isn't diddily-dick in these things outside of your standard shock gore. Dead body. Almost dead body. Bloody _Bye Bye_ scrawled on a white wall. Stefan looking like he took a blood pie to the face. Dead body—

Wait a minute.

"I'll be damned," I say, zooming in on the background on one of the pictures. There is a window in the upper left corner. And there is a single, familiar spire rising up behind the glass.

"What is it?" Elena asks, leaning forward.

I look up at her with a grin. "I think I know where they are."

-TBC-


	3. Chapter 3

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own this show. If I did, I sure the heck wouldn't be waiting THREE months to get back to it (weeps)**

_A/N: Yeah, this is REALLY squeaking it in at the eleventh hour. I've been slaving over it, I really have, but I had a ton of sporting stuff with kids this week. Anyhow, here it is. A lot of this chapter is for fun. Yes, that's right *fun* the thing we rarely get with Damon and Elena. There is angst-o-rama coming, but I really want to explore the dynamic between them – the reason they are so great together…the way they just WORK together…in every way. ;-) So just relax and try to enjoy this one - if you can. Hopefully you can._

_Also - you guys? Could earn a living making writers feel good. Thank you all SO much. Can someone tell me how to get into all of the reviews at once to respond to them since my emails are still all wonky? I'm super limited with time and bad at keeping track, so I was hoping to look and respond to the reviews in one sitting instead of sending PM's and trying to keep track of who I've sent them to. Any help would be greatly appreciated._

_Beware, there's a cliffhanger. Big things coming. (The kiss will be discussed, btw, but not just yet)_

_Please review!_

**Day Fourteen – Elena POV**

Do you know that it takes forty-two hours to drive to Seattle from Virginia? I do. In about two hours, I'll actually be able to say I've done it.

Yep, that's right. We are _driving_ to Seattle to find Stefan. From Virginia.

Mind you, a plane could have gotten us there in six, maybe eight hours, and that includes layovers. But, no, we can't do that. Ridiculous reason 1: Damon doesn't have a valid ID. (_Why the hell would I need it? was his response when I asked why not._) Ridiculous reason 2: Even though Damon could've compelled his way through security, Alaric felt that me flying so soon after Jenna's death might raise some red flags.

So, I packed a bag and bitched and moaned to Jeremy about how ridiculous my life is that I can't catch a flight because so many people around me are dying in an untimely manner. Jeremy snapped back that he's being haunted by his dead vampire girlfriends. That shut me up pretty quick. I even left him a Snickers bar on the kitchen counter. Peace offering.

We left immediately after school on Friday. With the holiday on Monday, we figured I'd only miss a day of school. Two, tops. It seemed doable.

And then Damon drove the first twenty-two hours of the trip, stopping only for gas or when I had to pee so bad my back teeth were floating. Climbing Everest was starting to sound easier than another hour in the passenger seat. Somewhere in North Dakota, I finally convinced him to let me take a shift. Thirty-six minutes into it I got pulled over for doing ninety-six in a seventy-five.

No, I didn't get a ticket. And yes, I know damned well that compulsion is wrong. But after twenty-two hours in a car, my morality got a little gray. We're closing in on hour 41 now. At this point, I'm not sure I could even _spell_ morality.

"I'm sick of trees," I gripe, propping my feet up on the dashboard as they blur past my passenger window, spires of verdent green pushing into a pale blue sky.

"Then look at the mountains," Damon says off-handedly. He's got one hand off the wheel, patting around the seat. I know what he's looking for and swat his hands away before he gets anywhere near my iPod.

"Stop it. You're supposed to be driving."

"I'm trying to. But this shit song is making me want to pull a Thelma and Louise off the nearest cliff."

"I'm sure you'll refrain," I say, rolling my eyes.

"This is depressing as hell! I feel like I should be sitting in a dark room, probably watching a documentary of a butterfly dying ," he says, then he shakes his head, looking blanched and horrified. "God, this is what it must be like to be _Stefan_."

"Good God, you big baby," I say, rooting around for the iPod myself. "Strangelove is a Depeche Mode classic. How can you hate this?"

"Because I have ears," he says. "And they work."

"It was one of Jenna's favorites," I inform him, flipping to another song. "I mean, this is classic late 80's stuff, right?"

Damon pulls a face, glancing sideways at me. "First off, there was nothing classic about the 80's. Stirrup pants, fingerless gloves, Kajagoogoo." He mock-shudders. "The whole decade should be erased from human history."

I twist in my seat to face him, eyeing him suspiciously. "You loved it, didn't you? You probably did the moonwalk and wang-changed or whatever."

"Wang-_chung_," he corrects. "And no. Mostly I stayed as drunk as possible. Come to think of it, I did learn one thing in the eighties."

"The importance of hairspray in mullet upkeep?" I guess.

He smirks at me. "Cute. But no."

I sigh, leaning back in the seat. "Fine, I'll bite. What did you learn?"

"That all the booze in the world won't make a girl look good in shoulder pads."

"I could totally rock shoulder pads," I say with a shrug, pulling my sunglasses back down over my eyes.

"_You_ could rock a suit of dead raccoons," he allows and I laugh again.

The sound withers into silence when we pass a helpful green sign perched on the side of the road. Seattle. 113 Miles.

That's….close. I'm not sure how this happened, but somewhere in the midst of this endless roadtrip, I lost focus on where we were going. And why.

I finger comb my hair and wish to God I could go back two hours. And this time, instead of making Damon guess TV theme songs I hummed, I could have done something worthwhile. I could have made some calls. Thought of a strategy—

"Quit it," Damon says, interrupting my thoughts without taking his eyes from the road.

"Quit what?"

"Going down the path of fear and self-loathing," he guesses. With annoying accuracy.

"I'm not going down any path," I lie.

"Stefan's my _brother_, Elena. I could diagnose this shit for a living. I could host a talk show."

"I just realized that we're getting closer," I push my hair behind my ear with a frown. "And we don't have a plan. We're not prepared for this, Damon. We're not ready."

"You're right," he says, and then he promptly vamps out, flashing me a brilliant smile around his fangs. "Okay. I'm good to go."

"I'm serious, Damon."

"So am I. These are very serious teeth, Elena."

I wave at him, exasperated. "Put them away before someone sees you!"

"Who? Yogi Bear? We haven't passed another car in ten minutes," he reasons, but his face returns to normal anyway. "Oh, fine. Let's plan things. Maybe we can get color coded stickers and a special filing cabinet."

"I'm just going to get my laptop," I say, unbuckling since it's in the backseat.

"Yes, because nothing says _bad ass_ _rescue plan_ like a pie graph and a flowchart. Grab me a bag of blood while you're back there. I'll need it for this."

"Do I look like a waitress?"

He cocks a brow at me. "You're starting to look a little like lunch."

I know he means blood. I _know_ that. But I've been cooped up in this car with him for two days. And he's _Damon_. He can't sing nursery rhymes without something NC-17 slipping in.

I flush hotly and Damon's expression changes, his eyes going just a little darker. Before I can read the new look, he snaps his focus back to the road. But I can see that his knuckles are whiter over the steering wheel.

Cheeks on fire, I twist around, leaning into the back seat to uncover his small cooler.

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Things between us would be perfect if _this_ would just go away. Damon's funny. He's smart and he'd do anything to protect me. I mean, if you take out the fangs, he's pretty much the perfect boyfriend brother.

Except that he's in love with me.

And some very sick, very twisted part of me is okay with that.

I plunge my shaking hands into the ice, trying to find a blood bag. God, this is revolting. And revolting is good. Revolting will keep me from thinking about the mess that is Damon and me.

"Shit!"

Before I can ask, the car swerves hard and I topple sideways, still dangling halfway into the backseat. It's beyond fast and somehow insanely slow, too.

Tires screech and we veer off the pavement wildly. The car is hurtling to a stop and I am flying towards the windshield now, my mouth opening to scream.

An arm hooks around me. I'm slammed back-first into the seat and then Damon's body is curling over me as we hit. The crash is deafening. Metal twists and glass explodes and my scream finally finds its way out of my throat.

The quiet that follows is absolute. I can hear nothing outside my own ragged breath. Damon is twisted over me, chest looming near. I open my eyes and turn my head, catching a glimpse of deer galloping into the trees.

Damon pulls back, touching my head, my shoulders, patting up and down my arms.

"Are you alright?" he asks.

We wrecked the car. Damon's entire back is riddled with glass and blood. I've got so much adrenaline pumping through me that my chest aches. No. No, I'm not okay.

"I barely got you," he says and his fingers are feathering over my face. My shoulders. He's shaking, too. "Do you have any pain? There could be internal injuries. Bleeding."

"I'm fine," I tell him, but he doesn't look like he believes it.

"I could get you to a hospital. Or give you…" he trails off there too, face twisting in misery and helplessness. It's not a good look for him.

I touch his arm. "Damon, I'm okay. Really. Not a scratch. I want…can we get out?"

He backs out first, clearing glass and metal as he eases me through the door.

On my own feet, I stare in wide-eyed horror. The car is not a car. Not anymore. Now, it's a tree bracelet. I have no idea how I'm alive. And then I look at Damon, pulling bits of metal and glass out of his jacket. He seems more concerned about that than the car.

"Damon," I say carefully. "Have you seen your car?"

"It's seen better days," he shrugs, heading back over to the once beautiful convertible. I can't believe he's so…well, _calm_. It's like he's possessed.

"Is this some sort of man shock? Are you going to go into hysterics any minute?" I ask him.

"It's a car, Elena. It's not like I registered for china with it."

He's flipping through the glove compartment now, pocketing a couple of things and then crawling into the backset. I hear his cooler open and close. He's in there a couple of minutes and when he emerges, he's got three empty blood bags.

"You drank them _all_?" I ask.

"You'd rather the Washington Police find them in the backseat of the car?"

"What do you mean? We can't leave the car here."

"What do you want me to do? _Drag_ it all the way to Seattle?"

"Alright, fine. I just need to think. We need to think for a minute."

"What do you absolutely have to have?" he asks, heading back to the car.

"My backpack," I say automatically. "My laptop is in the front of it."

He grabs a single change of clothing from his own bag and stuffs it in my already overcrammed pack. Then he hands it to me. "Okay, you take this."

"Well, what are you going to take?"

"You."

What? Oh, no. No, no, no.

"Uh huh. You're not carrying me. No way."

"C'mon. It's Twilight country. Harness your inner Bella and climb on."

"You're crazy. It's a hundred miles to Seattle."

"It's eighteen miles to the next town, which is obviously where we need to go to scrounge up another car. But you're welcome to walk. Or you could just hitch a ride with a logging crew, or maybe a passing trucker. I'm sure they'll be happy to have the company—

"Fine, you win," I say, hauling the backpack over my shoulders.

To his credit, he doesn't say anything else, just crouches down so I can climb on piggy-back. "This is so humiliating," I say, and then his hands are under my knees and I'm off the ground.

There is this insane moment where I'm way too aware of how close we are, my legs hitched up by his waist, my fingers curling over his shoulders. Damon doesn't have a single soft inch on his body. Except maybe his lips.

God, I really, _really_ shouldn't know that.

But I do.

"Hold on," Damon says, saving me from revisiting that night.

"Okay," I say.

And then we're flying. The speed scares the crap out of me. I give up on his shoulders and lock my arms around his neck, digging my chin into his shoulder. I have to close my eyes against the wind, it is _that_ fast.

"If you drop me, I'll kill you," I scream over the roar of the wind.

Damon just laughs and runs faster, zigging in and out of what I can only guess are trees. I wouldn't want to look, even if I could. But with my eyes closed, I'm not afraid. I feel the wind driving through my hair and smell the crisp tones of pine in the damp air. It's the most beautiful thing I've ever _not_ seen.

When we finally reach the city, I loosen my grip and open my eyes. It's postcard perfect, a little stretch of old fashioned storefronts with a green, towering backdrop of mountains all around.

Damon eases me to the ground and I test my legs, finding them sturdier than I would have guessed.

He pulls out his buzzing phone with a frown, expression going darker still when he views the name on the screen. I see a muscle in his jaw jump as he answers, his eyes scanning the area.

"What do you want?"

Okay. Clearly not a friend.

I can't hear the words on the other end of the line. But I can hear the voice a little, and I _know_ that voice. I've heard it on videos and on voicemail messages and in a million other places over the years. Because that voice belongs to me.

And one other person, of course.

"It's Katherine," I say

Damon's look is all the confirmation I need.

-TBC-


	4. Chapter 4

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own this show. If I did, I sure the heck wouldn't be waiting THREE months to get back to it (weeps)**

_A/N: This weekend has been CRAZY busy around my house, so I'm sorry for the delay. Sadly we have a huge and costly home improvement project that we HAD to deal with, so it'll be a few days until the next review too. So…in an effort to make up, this chapter's a little long. Okay, it's a lot long. Hope it's not TOO long! Eep!_

_I really, really hope you all like it. I'm feeling a little edgy about this chapter in particular because I've had nowhere near as much editing time on it. I'm sorry if it's rough – real life is being a bear, but I hope you'll enjoy it as much as you can._

_Also, I am trying to start going through reviews but each response takes three or four minutes, so I'm struggling to balance replying and writing. It's just super important to me that you all know how grateful I am. Your reviews are the reason I keep posting – they really are. I'm so touched by each one._

_Read and drop me a line! Have a great rest of your weekend!_

**Day Fourteen – Damon's POV**

"You can't be serious," Elena says, staring at the old Harley Sportster with disbelief etched in her features.

"Well it's either this or that pink Beetle over there," I say, pointing at the rusting bucket of nastiness parked on the other end of the lot.

"What's wrong with the Beetle? It's a car, at least!"

I gape at her. "You're not serious. My balls would fall off if I got within ten feet of that thing."

"It's not that bad," she says, squinting at the Pepto-bismal pink monstrosity.

"It's a box of tampons on wheels, Elena."

"Fine, it's bad. But this?" She waves in the bike's direction. "Is ridiculous. It's like sixty degrees."

"You can wear my coat."

She shakes her head and purses her lips. "Motorcycles are dangerous."

"What are you, eighty? Live a little, for God's sake. I've got supernatural reaction times, remember."

"Says the vampire who just wrapped his car around a tree."

She crosses her arms and it pushes her tits up _just so_ in her little red t-shirt. I'd be tempted to mention it, but then she'd storm off with her cape of righteous indignation trailing behind her and I'm just too fucking tired to deal with that right now.

"Tick tock, Elena," I say. "The Harley's faster, more reliable, and if you want to get GreenPeacy about it, it's a hell of a lot better on gas mileage."

She narrows her eyes at me and I can practically hear the gears turning in her head before she speaks. "Fine. I'll go along with this. On one condition?"

"And that would be?"

"You have to tell me what Katherine said to you on the phone."

"I already told you—

"The _rest_ of it," she says, because dammit if that girl doesn't read between the lines with me _every_ time. "Katherine told you where he was, but she told you something else. Something you _don't_ want to tell me."

Shit.

I take a long, hard look at the Polly-Pocket-Mobile, because even that might not be as bad as spilling the rest of that phone call. The car stares back at me, bright and happy, and…no. Fuck, no. My dick is shrinking from here.

"Do you really want to hear this?" I ask her.

She shakes her head. "Probably not. But you're going to tell me anyway."

"Fine. Masochist," I say with a sigh. "Katherine was hoping she'd have a better shot with him. You know, now that he's Darth Stefan."

Elena nods, and I already see it in her eyes. The fear. The same fear that sent her practically flying off my bed that night. She might as well have had GUILTY tattooed on her forehead when Katherine showed up in the doorway, teasing smile on her lips.

"Go on," she says, sounding like she wishes I wouldn't.

"She told him you kissed me," I say in a rush.

I actually see the color drain from her face as she realizes the implications of that statement.

"That wasn't a kiss," she says.

"Well, technically…" I trail off, leaving her to fill in all those messy blanks.

I can tell when she does. Two spots of color rise high in her cheeks and she bites her lip. "I thought you were dying! That wasn't…I didn't…there was…"

"Yeah, I know," I say. Which is horseshit.

I don't have a damned clue what that kiss was about. I'm guessing something along the lines of 'Oh, look at the poor little half-dead vampire! How can I make it better? Oh, I know! Let me give him just enough of a taste of me to make him fucking insane if he does happen to live through this.'

"We have to fix this," she says, pacing back and forth.

Here we fucking go. Of course. Stefan's feelings might be hurt. All stations to DEFCON 1.

"We can't let him think this, Damon. It'll destroy him," she says.

This girl is a soap opera on legs. All we need is a camera crew and some background music. She could use all these serious faces and purposeful hair-tucks. When we finally find Stefan, they'll pull the shot wide and the emo music will rise and she can tearfully call his name—

"Are you even listening to me?"

"Not really," I admit with a shrug.

Her arms go ramrod straight, fingers tucked into little fists. Yosemite Sam without the moustache. I sigh theatrically, slinging an arm over her shoulder. It's like embracing a glacier.

"Look, Frosty, we've got a motorcycle to buy, ninety-four miles to cover, and my idiot crackhead brother to save from his own heroic bullshit. Maybe we should deal with your little pity kiss later."

She shrugs off my arm and looks at me like a cockroach she found in her salad. "It wasn't….that's not…"

I cock my head, all wide eyes and ready to listen. "What's that, Elena? You want to talk about _why_ you kissed me that day?"

Her face goes red. Then almost purple. I think about laughing, but she's really pissed. And frankly, she knows enough about the business end of a stake for me to keep my mouth shut.

"Let's just get this over with," she says, gritting out every word through clenched teeth.

"Sure thing," I smirk.

I pay for the motorcycle and a helmets while she sends me looks that could kill a mere mortal at ten paces. She doesn't say a word when I hand her my leather jacket, a little worse for the wear thanks to the damn crash.

She's hot as all hell when she's angry. Of course she doesn't know that as she slides her little arms into my coat and zips it up her middle. And, yeah, I let my eyes linger a little on the way she looks in it. Who wouldn't?

"Are we ready?" she asks, irritably.

She's perched on the back of the bike in a way that makes my poor, frightened cock forget all about that scary pink car.

We roll out of town four minutes later, back onto the winding highway that leads through the mountains. I figure Elena for the type to hold onto the little handle behind her seat, but she doesn't. And with her arms wrapped around me, her tits pressed into my back, and her legs tucked alongside either of mine, I'm the lines of right and wrong are getting blurry.

I need to get to Seattle. Now. Maybe ten minutes ago. Because every mile we go, I'm thinking up a whole new list of shit I would sell my soul to do with this girl. My mind is flipping through sexual positions like a Rolodex. Hell, I'm not even sure half of them are physically possible, but I'd damn well give them a shot.

We hit the outskirts of Seattle around ten o'clock. I'm beat to hell, so I know Elena's got to be getting tired. I pull off the highway maybe five miles from the area Katherine gave me.

We pull up to a stoplight and she tugs off her helmet. I smell her shampoo and her perfume and the bitter tang of my wilting willpower.

"What now?" she asks and she is _right_ by my neck. Breathing on me.

I'm not a good guy. Hell, I'm probably only a couple of rungs up from _sex toy_ on the evolutionary ladder, so having Elena squirming around on the itty bitty seat behind me has my mind spinning.

"Damon?" she asks.

Right. I probably should say something. Something that isn't, 'On a scale of 1 to 10, how evil is it that I can't think about anything but fucking you right now?'

"I need to get some sleep," I tell her. "Get my head clear."

_Both of them._

To my absolute shock, she agrees with a nod. "It's been a long drive."

I'm smart enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I find the nearest hotel that seems likely to offer good beds and room service. It's a twenty story historical thing downtown. Nice, but not flashy.

I slide a credit card across the counter and wait for some sitcom tension builder, where the clerk only has one room left and it's the honeymoon suite. No, better yet, a small room with one bed. And then Elena will stomp her foot—

"Here's your key card. The elevator is running slow, but it'll get you there. Can I do anything else for you?"

I glance at Elena, who's chewing her thumbnail and looking bored. Huh. Kind of anticlimactic.

"Thanks. What do you have left on room service right now?" I ask the clerk. She's a cute blonde, probably in her twenties. And my question makes her frown.

"I'm sorry. Our menu is limited after ten o'clock. We do have a few sandwiches and appetizers. Desserts, too."

"Can you send one of everything up?" I ask and her answering smile is so wide I'd be surprised if it didn't hurt.

"I'd be happy to," she says, still looking at me like I just asked her to prom.

"Let's go," I say, touching Elena's elbow and jostling her out of whatever trance she'd slipped into. Truthfully, I'm not sure she heard a thing that we said at that counter, so maybe she still expects her own room.

Inside the elevator, she sighs, turning dark-ringed eyes on me. "I'm starving. Is there room service?"

"They're bringing a little something up," I tell her and she nods, then her brow furrows as the elevator slowly lifts us off the first floor.

"Wait a minute, if you had a credit card why couldn't you buy one of the bigger cars?"

"Art's Auto's doesn't deal in plastic," I tell her. I _don't_ tell her I've had a yen for Harley's for a few decades now and was happy for an excuse to grab one.

We lapse into silence, watching the numbers slowly light above the doors.

"I'm glad you're here," she blurts out, cheeks going pink as she looks sideways at me. "I mean I'm not glad we're _here_, but…"

"But?" I ask.

She gives me this little coy smile before she finishes. "Well, you're not the _worst_ company, Damon."

Where have I heard—ah, right. Georgia. Land of peaches and magnolias and roadtrips that end in vampires falling for seventeen year old girls. That's when it happened. I looked over from my barstool and she was chowing into her burger, not some dainty little baby girl bite, either. A _real_ bite. And I thought, who _is_ this girl? And what happened to the prim little drip that Stefan appeared to be dating?

I smile back at her, the inside joke making me warm all over. Jesus. I'm waxing sentimental. What's next? Poetry writing? Buying her a puppy?

The elevator dings and the doors slide open.

I gesture for her to go first. The room is at the end of the hallway. Small but clean, with good toiletries in the bathroom and mounds of white pillows and blankets on each bed.

Elena slides into the bathroom, calling over her shoulder. "I'm just going to grab a quick shower."

_I'm just going to sit here and watch my cock explode while I imagine you doing it._

She disappears into the bathroom and I tune the TV to the local news. Traffic, weather, sports. Pay no attention to the sound of water behind the door, Salvatore.

Room service knocks around the time Elena emerges. She's wearing pajamas. And fuck me running if it isn't the same little blue set she wore when I told her I loved her. The first time. I take a few bills to the door and open it enough to allow the heavy-laden tray inside.

"Shall I set this up on the table?" a slim brunette offers. I nod absently while Elena heads over to wait. She must be starving. Her eyes are gleaming all those covered dishes.

I take a whiff, trying to figure out what the hell I've ordered. And yeah, I smell food, but I smell something else. Something that turns my veins to ice.

I fly to the girl, snatching her arm and whirling her to face me.

"Damon!" Elena says, but I ignore her, pulling at the girl's white collar until a button pops and I can see the savage bite just above her collar. The gauze that's only partially covering it is still oozing blood.

"Damon!" Elena says again, and then she sees what I'm seeing and her face goes white and hard.

"Who did this to you?" I ask her softly, urging her answer with the lightest touch of compulsion I can manage.

"I don't remember," she says, her heavily-lined eyes rimmed with black.

"Compelled," I say, for Elena's benefit.

Elena says nothing. Just stands there turning whiter by the second.

"What's your name?" I ask her.

She blinks at me. Dazed. "Daisy."

"Daisy, tell me the last thing you remember before you were hurt."

"I was walking home with Zoe. We were a little drunk. There was a guy."

She freezes up a little, her face scrunching like she's not sure what to say. She's not too much older than Elena. And the dark hair and dark eyes? Let's hope to God Elena doesn't put those ugly pieces together.

"Tell me about the guy," I urge.

"He was tall. Good looking. Brown kind of tall hair. He had a friend with an accent."

"Well, well. Talk about your beginner's luck," someone says from the doorway.

It's not _someone_, though.

"Katherine," I say, ignoring Daisy and moving for Elena. I slide neatly in front of her, and of course, Elena being Elena, she's having none of that. She shoves me aside, stepping forward.

"How did you find us?" Elena asks.

"Ugh, it was exhausting. I had to compel every front desk clerk in a five mile radius. Irr-i-ta-ting," Katherine sing-songs.

She slinks into one of the chairs by the bed and turns to Daisy. "Where were you when you saw this guy?"

"I…" she trails off, shaking her head. "I don't—wait. Vine Street. Near the monorail."

I start inching in front of Elena again. She notices. And huffs, pushing me out of the way. We exchange a series of heated looks while Katherine drills Daisy, getting absolutely nowhere.

"God, you're like a doll with a string," Katherine says throwing up her hands at Daisy. "Well, come here so I can finish the job."

Elena's fingers go over my arm and my mouth flies open. "No dice, Katherine. Let her go."

"Oh my God, you are _whipped_," Katherine says.

"Daisy, go," I command, and Katherine laughs.

She doesn't, however, try to stop the girl from fleeing.

"My, my," Katherine says, shaking her head. "What exactly are you hiding under those cute jammies, Elena?" she asks with a wink.

I feel rage rush through me like a train. It's all I can do to keep my fangs tucked away. "You don't get to talk to her," I grit out. "You don't get to _look_ at her."

Katherine flies across the room and we're on each other, hands around each others' throats.

"You think you're going to stop me?" she asks, pinching off my windpipe. "I'll do whatever I want."

I protest, but it's a strangled noise. I free one hand from her neck, slugging her across the jaw. She reels back laughing, licking blood from her lips.

And I pray hard for the first time in a million years. Because I need Elena to run. I need to her to get the hell out of here as fast as her feet will take her.

"Look at you," Katherine sneers at me. "All soft and gooey in the middle, just like you were all those years ago. That's what makes Stefan different."

"Stefan needs a twelve step program," I finally gasp out. "Not exactly a paragon of inner strength if you ask me."

We trade blows back and forth again, narrowly missing Elena who's crouched by her backpack.

Katherine just shakes her head. "You're just jealous of your brother. It kills you that you're always second best."

I finally get a hand in her hair, hauling her off of me and tossing her across the room. The throw leaves a fistful of long black tresses in my fingers. I grin wide and toss them on the carpet. "Takes one to know one."

"I'm the _original_, Damon. I can't be second best. _I'm_ the reason why this pathetic little child has you both by the shorthairs. You think it's a coincidence you're both in love with my _doppelganger_."

"No. I think it's irony," I say, catching the chair she hurls at me with ease. "I spent a century and a half chasing your low-rent ass, only to find that the girl who's your spitting image outshines you like the Sun."

"How touching," she says, and then she flies at me.

But Elena gets there first, ducking between my legs on the floor. Panicked, I tangle Katherine's hands so she can't grab her and watch in awe as Elena shoves one, two, and then three vervain darts into Katherine's thigh. Then, quick as you please, she nails her with a stake, low in her belly.

Katherine screams, falling backward.

"What the hell?" I ask and Elena shrugs.

"Alaric brewed an extra potent batch."

"I'm immune to vervain," Katherine snarls, but she's she stumbles back, pulling out the stake weakly.

"Here's the bitch of that thing," I say, clicking my tongue. "You've got to have it every day to keep it up. Vervain's a little hard to come by out here, isn't it, Katherine?"

She growls up at me, murder in her eyes. Too bad she's not able to do much more than squirm around like a slug on the floor at this point.

Elena hands me a second stake from the open pouch at her feet. Where the hell did she have _that_ hiding?

"Don't kill her," Elena says.

"Seriously? Why the hell not?"

"She knows something about Stefan," Elena says. "She wants him alive or she wouldn't be here."

"This is _Katherine_, Elena. We'd have better luck having Satan over for high tea."

"Think about what she might know," Elena reasons, touching my arm.

"Think about the way she'd look stuffed and mounted over my fireplace."

Off of Elena's stern look, I relent, plunging the stake a few inches left of the bullseye.

Katherine's eyes find mine, shock registering with the pain. "You really would have done it. You would have killed me."

"Yes," I tell her. And fuck it. Maybe I want to rub it in. I lean close, rubbing my cheek against hers, putting my lips close to her ear. "Lucky for you the only thing I want more than making you dead is making _her_ happy."

-TBC-


	5. Chapter 5

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own this show. If I did, I sure the heck wouldn't be waiting THREE months to get back to it (weeps)**

_A/N: Um. Yeah. My life. Esssploded. In many bad ways. And I really really doubt anyone even remembers this story. So I don't know why I'm updating. But I've got like two more chapters written so I figured maybe I'd just throw this out there._

_In case anyone is reading. *crosses fingers and toes and hopes, hopes, hopes* Anyone? Beuller?_

_I warn you, I'm playing a little. I want this to be realistic, but Season 2 was so depressing and miserable that I just can't keep it that dire. I really wanted to have a bit of fun. And I want Elena to crack a little. Act her age. Be a little more with the whim and the what-the-hell and a little less with the SOMBER. I think she's long overdue. I think Season 2 was pushing her in a direction of maturity and graveness that I found very hard to believe. So my Elena will act a little less controlled. And I also think that losing the influence of Stefan could cause this reversion to pseudo normalcy in her. So, yeah, there's ALL my excuses for why Elena kind of goes crazy._

_And if you hate it or me for writing it…well, um okay. BUT! If you happen to like it, and you actually remember this story and are willing to forgive my ridiculous (but really warranted – if you had all the details, I swear you'd forgive me) delay, please, please review?_

_And on another note….why are my Author's Note's longer than my chapters? Except for this one – this chapter is HUGELY long. Elena's POV & Damon's POV. Two parter._

**Day Eighteen – Elena's POV**

I hate failing.

And that's what this is. Failure.

The day started with a trifecta of crap. Katherine escaped. Alaric called to inform us of a hearing from Children Services coming next week. And then, right when Damon slipped into the bathroom for a shower, I got the text message from Klaus.

_Wish you were here, Elena?_

The text was accompanied by a picture I will never un-see. Stefan. Stefan with his fangs and his fingers buried in a girl. His fangs in her neck. His fingers in a place that hurts me even worse.

I did the only thing that seemed to make sense at the time. I broke into the hotel mini fridge and drank every little bottle of liquor I could get my hands on. And since Damon was in the shower, and I wasn't even close to drunk enough to deal with the images of my boyfriend fingering another girl, I raided a housekeeping cart I found in the hallway.

Who knew they have boxes of those miniature bottles right alongside the shampoos and bars of soap. I downed four more of those little suckers before deciding to head downstairs. And I can't remember if I was looking for the pool or maybe another unattended maid cart, but when I spotted the baby-faced boy behind the bar in the lobby, I changed my plans at once.

"Is it always so quiet in here?" I ask, taking a long drink of the pink, fruity goodness before me.

"We actually don't open for five more minutes," the bartender replies.

"Well, in that case, I feel special, Billy," I say.

Billy, who's been flirting since he served me my highly illegal Cosmo five minutes ago, suddenly goes pale.

"What is it?" I ask, but I don't really need to ask.

I already know what it is. Or _who_ it is, more accurately.

"Lemme guess," I say, taking another long drink. "Party pooper at six o'clock."

Billy doesn't even look at me. His terrified eyes are fixed at a point above my head. I catch a whiff of soap from the shower-fresh vampire who's obviously standing behind me.

"I-I didn't know she was with someone," Billy says.

"You do now," Damon says, and there's something a little delicious and growly in his voice. I'm immune to it, of course. Sadly, my stomach, which is now doing little loop-de-loops, is not.

The bartender decides that the other end of the bar needs his immediate attention. Despite the fact that it's both spotless and empty. _Wimp._

I spin around on my barstool, my knees knocking against Damon's thighs. I look him up and down, trying to assess how deep the shit I've waded into is. Not caring, mind you. Just assessing.

Damon's expression is promising death and dismemberment, but somehow I can't seem to care.

He cares clearly. I can see that from the fact that his hair is still wet and his shirt is still clinging to his arms and chest, so I'm not sure he gave the towel more than a passing glance before ripping on his clothes.

"Little early for a bender, isn't it?" he asks, sotto voice.

"This from the guy who's drunk by 10:00am most days?"

"I'm not seventeen. Or human, for that matter," he says, tugging me gently off the stool and towards the elevator. "Let's go."

"What if I'm not ready to go?"

He takes a steeling breath and I watch his nostrils flare. Before, he would have just thrown me over his shoulder or screamed or maybe bitten me or something. Now, he's careful. Afraid to cross one of those invisible lines, I'm sure.

Ah, boundaries. The invisible lines that Stefan knows by heart. They've always been there between us, keeping that gap between my world and his. Holding us, just slightly, but unmistakably, apart.

Those lines do something different with Damon and me, something that makes me feel tangled and caught. I think he feels that way too. All knotted up in the mess that is us.

"You won't make me go," I say, challenging this new Damon.

"You're right," he agrees, but his grin is anything but friendly. "Hey, how do you feel about camping?"

I hate camping.

Which I'm sure he knows.

The last time I did it (I was eight) I had a bad reaction to a spider bite and had to spend the night in some scary, tiny hospital in the middle of Appalachia. I'd rather eat live snakes then crawl into a tent again.

He rubs his chin. "You know, I bet I could trade that Harley in for a hell of a tent. And a couple of backpacks."

I could sooner imagine Damon doing the Can-can on Broadway than to see him setting up a tent in some desolate area. I cross my arms because I'm not buying it. Even if there isn't anything else on the shelves.

He leans in, with a look that dares me to call his bluff. "There are literally _thousands_ of miles of rocky, mud-strewn trails traversing this great country, Elena. Can you imagine traveling them all?"

I glower at him, but it's useless. He means it. Changed or not, this is still Damon.

God, I hate him. But I still follow him into the elevator, sighing loudly and swinging my hips. "It's not like I was in danger."

"Elena, you can't take a shit without risking your life," Damon says, rubbing his eyes and looking suddenly tired as the elevator doors grind closed behind us.

"I'm sorry about the text," he says quietly.

I hit the button for our floor, and then I whirl on him, all that anger I tried to bury under vodka gushing out. "You knew? Why am I even surprised? You knew he'd be doing stuff like this and you just…you _let_ him do it!"

"I _let_ him?"

Yeah, I know it's crazy, but I'm too far gone to care. "Yes, you let him! You knew he'd try to save you. And you knew what Klaus would do and that Stefan—that he wouldn't—you knew _all_ of it!"

Damon is uncharacteristically quiet, and I know I should shut up. Reel in the crazy and bring calm, rational Elena back out. I'm not completely stupid. Or maybe I am because even though I know I should stop, I don't. As soon as we're out of the elevator and back in our hotel room, I start again.

"Why didn't you tell me this would happen?" I ask, ridiculously, the stupid, _insane_ words spilling out of me. "What, is this all part of your plan? Did you think this would somehow give you an advantage with me?"

He cocks his head at me, having finally had enough. "Yes, Elena, I _planned_ this. In fact, I paid Tyler to bite me so that I could almost die, and then trusted _Katherine_, who I wouldn't piss on if she were on fire, to save my life. And I did all this because my Psychic Friends Network buddy told me that Stefan would turn to the dark side and then, I'd get to haul your ass all over the western United States."

He shakes his head, looking disgusted. "This isn't a _plan_, Elena. This is a really shitty episode of Supernatural, maybe, but it sure the hell isn't a scheme to spend _quality_ time with you!"

"Well, thank God for that, because I'm getting pretty damn sick of you!" I retort.

"Clearly! You were practically dry humping that little infant bartender downstairs."

"This isn't a date, Damon! How many times do you have to hear it? I'm _not_ yours, so you can save your jealous crap!"

Damon reaches for the bathroom door, and then changes his mind, slamming it closed and whirling on me. He's so fast and so close that all I can see is the flash of his eyes.

"I _wasn't_ jealous, Elena. I didn't have _time_ to be jealous because I was pretty fucking busy reminding myself that killing every person in this hotel wasn't an appropriate way to deal with feeling scared to death that I lost you."

My voice is thready and weak, lost in the tightness of my throat. "I wasn't lost."

"You were lost to me," he says, just as softly.

My anger crumbles with a sniff. And there is nothing behind it but the anguish of the truth. The picture of Stefan flashes through my mind again, and this time it hits my heart. It shreds me through and through.

And then comes the guilt. Like a wave.

I cover my face with my hands as the first sob comes. And then I'm leaning into his chest and I can feel his anger vanish, too.

"It hurts," I cry against him.

"I know," he says.

And he does know, so I clench my arms around his middle and cry. And for the first time ever, I feel his arms go around me. Not to lift me up or hold me back, but to embrace me. It is the first time he's ever really held me and it feels _so_ right. And of course, _that_ makes me cry even harder, because we shouldn't fit like this, like a hand in a glove, each bit of us melting seamlessly into the other.

"I'm so sorry," I bawl into his t-shirt, sorry for the awful things I said and for Stefan being gone and for how good this feels when it damn well shouldn't.

He shakes his head, kissing the crown of my head while his hands stroke my arms. "Don't be. I can take it. I'm still here."

"I know," I say, and I do. Of course I do.

Ugly, pissy, bitchy, awful. It doesn't matter how I am to him. I am me and that is somehow always enough.

I can't even think about what that means. Or, even worse, what it means that I _know_ he'll always be here. That I count on him with the same absolute certainty that I have that the sun will rise every morning.

I push the thought out, instead breathing in the damp smell of his skin and his shirt mixed with my tears.

It is a long while before I stop crying, and even when I do, I don't release him. I close my eyes and think of Stefan again.

An ache throbs deep in my chest, but it is different. I don't feel it any less. But it isn't all I feel. And that's something.

"Better?" Damon asks, his low voice rumbling all through me.

I nod, but I don't release him. I can't. Not yet.

If Damon looks at me right now, even for a second, I don't know what he's going to see in my eyes. And I'm pretty sure, whatever it is, I'm not ready for it.

**Day Eighteen - Damon's POV**

Fucked.

That's me.

In the head. Up the ass. Pretty much every way you can use the word applies.

Except the one that matters, of course.

I brace my hands on the sink and stare myself down in the mirror. Outside the door, I can hear the television on. Elena is laughing, which means it's cartoons. She doesn't really laugh at comedy movies. Just groans and rolls her eyes.

I know _all_ this domestic bullshit. I bring her croissants in the morning and keep the hotel room at a sweltering seventy-four degrees because the girl breaks into shivers at anything less. And when she cried her poor little eyeballs out over my brother, I held her tight and stroked her hair.

I am one glass of bunny blood away from wearing wife-beaters and looking like I need more fiber in my diet.

And while we're on this depressing turn of events, could someone tell me how the fuck I ended up in the Friend Zone? I'm the guy that puts _other_ guys in the Friend Zone.

I scowl at my reflection in the mirror. I've been thirty-six hours without blood and longer than I care to admit without getting laid and I look every minute of both. I've got the dark circles under the eyes and the chronic hard-on that no number of showers, or jack-off sessions in said showers, seems capable of eliminating.

I throw on some jeans and open the bathroom door. Elena, who could technically do a damn fine job at solving both issues, is on her belly watching TV. She's still digging through a half-melted sundae from room service in front of her while she watches Tom and Jerry on TV.

Cartoons. What a good little house vampire I am! Maybe I'll get tags and a collar and everything!

I should be checking out the golden stretch of her thighs where her shorts have ridden up. Alright, I am checking that out, but you know what I'm more focused on? The place where her jaw meets her ear. The way her lips twitch in a grin as Jerry flies around a corner with Tom on his heels.

I scrub a hand over my face and she turns to look at me. She kind of pauses. And I pause. And there's this whole deal with her _not_ looking at the fact that I'm not wearing a shirt and then me _not_ noticing that she's _not_ looking. And it's just fucking ridiculous.

I could cut the tension between us with a knife and serve a slice of it up like pie.

Or I could climb onto that bed with her emotionally fragile, needy self and fuck her into next Tuesday. That would solve all _kinds_ of tension.

But I won't do it, of course. I _respect_ her too much. Which, in man-speak means I should just lop off my dick and donate it to someone who actually deserves to have it.

"I need to head out for a bit," I say, feeling the distinct need for blood. Or sex. Preferably both.

She looks up at me in her little pajama set. She's not quite pouting, but she's close. "But you said we have to leave in a few hours."

"We do. But I need to grab a bite to eat before we head out."

I was hoping she'd stay here, but she hops up, flashing me a very pretty inch or two of cleavage when she leans over to pluck her jean shorts off the chair beside the bed. God, I'm like a teenager. Except if I had seven minutes in a closet with this girl, she'd come out speaking in tongues.

She starts working her hair into a ponytail, revealing this smooth little sliver of golden flesh that makes my fangs ache inside my gums.

"You could stay here if you want," I say with a shrug.

"Oh," she says, shorts still in hand. She frowns and looks back at the TV. "I guess I could stay."

She doesn't want to stay. I can see it all over her. The sting in her eyes. The loneliness. But if she goes, I'm crystal clear on what I'm getting tonight. A two-week old bag of B negative chilled to a nauseating 38 degrees. No sex at all. I'll be lucky to catch three minutes of scrambled porn while she brushes her teeth.

"I wouldn't mind the company," I tell her.

Worse still, I mean it.

She brightens immediately, slipping into the bathroom and emerging about sixty seconds later with her shorts on and….what. the. hell. What in the _hell_ is she wearing?

"I borrowed your t-shirt," she says, biting her lip.

"I can see that," I say, my mouth gone dry.

"Mine are all still drying from when I washed them out and I didn't want to go out in a cami."

"Ah."

So, instead she thinks that tying a knot in the back of my tshirt so that it curves around her tits _just so_ is a better plan? Need. Blood. Rightfuckingnow.

"Ready?" I ask, figuring it's best to keep conversation at a minimum. Most of the words I'm thinking wouldn't be fit for her ears.

Things improve oh-so-much when she's on the back of the motorcycle, clamping her hot little thighs against my hips while her arms cross over my middle. After an hour of fruitless searching, I pull up to a streetlight and she adjusts on her seats, legs shimmying. My eyes actually roll.

And then she leans in to talk to me, her mouth close to my ear. "What about the West Seattle Psychiatric Hospital?"

"You gonna let me bite a crazy person?"

"No."

"Then it's pointless. They won't have blood."

We've already tried two other hospitals. I don't know what the deal is in Seattle, but the cold blood storage is damn near impossible to get to. By my guess, I would have had to compel eight or nine people just to get in. And that's if I was right about where they actually keep the blood. It was like Fort Knox for plasma and shit.

Elena moves her legs again and my fangs actually pop out.

Jesus, what the fuck is my problem?

I pull over the bike and jump off, pushing my hands through my hair. Need to pull my shit together.

"What's wrong?" she asks, still straddling the bike.

"I need some blood," I say, pacing nervously. Laughing a little. "Like right now."

She frowns. "Okay. We're working on that, right?"

"It's getting a little urgent," I tell her, making sure to meet her eyes so she can see that I'm serious. Veiny-eyed serious.

A woman in her forties is strolling down the street across from us. Blah-blah-blah'ing something inane on her cell phone. I glance at her. Not even remotely my type, but desperate times and all that.

"No," Elena says, catching my stare. "No way, Damon. You can't!"

"I can and I'm about to," I tell her. "Look, I don't need much. A pint. That's what they take when you donate blood. Hell, I'll even buy her some OJ and a pack of those damn crackers they give you."

"A pint?" she asks, narrowing her eyes.

"I could deal with a little less than that! Just enough to tide me over until we get out of Seattle."

"Alright," she says, pushing her hair behind her shoulders. "Then take it from me."

-TBC-


	6. Chapter 6

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own this show. If I did, I sure the heck wouldn't be waiting THREE months to get back to it (weeps)**

_A/N: YAY YAY YAY! You're still out there! Do you know how nice it is to hear from people reading your fic? Most of you do because you write too, but to those who don't….it's AMAZING. Thank you all so much. I am so, so grateful for your kind words. They totally keep me writing._

_Sorry this one took a little while, too. I actually really struggled to get it right and had to rewrite it about four times. O.o Yeouch._

_I think/hope/pray it's where it needs to be. I feel And I'm pretty sure it's going to deliver at least a teeny taste of what you've waited very patiently for which is really good because you might…um…hate me. *sob*_

_And um….I won't have the next chapter up for a week and a half because I'm going to be out of town in the land of no internet. *ducks*_

_So, yeah, if anyone out there DOESN'T hate me at the end, please please review? I swear, I'm such a neurotic writer, always scared I'm going to scare my amazing readers away! :P  
><em>

_(Again, we have both POV's here)_

**Day Eighteen – Elena's POV**

"Alright," I say, pushing my hair back. "Then take it from me."

Damon's whole body goes still, his eyes flickering in a dangerous way.

Any second now, he'll refuse me. Any second now…

Uh, why isn't he refusing me? Why isn't he giving me a tortured look, shaking his head all long and slow while his eyes go mournful, maybe while he says something about me being too precious to bite. Why isn't he—

_Why isn't he what, Elena? Acting like Stefan?_

I swallow hard, finally recognizing the expression that is etched in every line of Damon's face.

Hunger.

Not just physical, either. He doesn't say a word, but somehow his silent consideration says more. His eyes, blue again, are heavy lidded and his mouth is just a little bit open, and, Oh my God, he's going to do this.

I should have known better. He isn't like Stefan. He isn't ashamed of what he is.

Or of what he wants.

That truth sends an electric buzzing up my spine. I feel my breath quicken when he finally opens his mouth to say something.

"You ready to take it back, Elena?"

The timber of his voice alone is enough to coil my belly into a knot. Yes. Yes, I want to take it back. Winning whatever challenge he's issuing with that perfectly arched brow doesn't matter. It's time to put my cards on the table and shrug off my bad bluff. Right now.

"Is this your version of the 'You-don't-understand-what-you're-offering me' speech, Damon?"

I hear the words. I hear them come out of _my_ mouth, but it doesn't make sense. I couldn't have said that, could I? I can barely stand the idea of me _thinking_ that.

I don't actually see Damon move. I just feel a rush of air and then he is right on me, hand cupped around the back of my neck, eyes flicking between my mouth and my throat.

"Wrong brother," he says. "I'm the sinner, not the saint, and if you're offering me a drink from the Holy Grail, I'm damn well going to take it."

I want to say something, anything, really, but my mouth is dryer than the Sahara. And it wouldn't matter if I could speak because my heart is pounding so hard right now there's no way either one of us could hear anything I managed to get out.

He cocks his head, backing up just enough to give me the choice. "Point of no return, Elena. Give me your wrist. Or roll your eyes and laugh and I'll let you pretend that this moment never happened."

I need to laugh because it's the only rational choice. It's the only thing I can do from here that isn't completely and totally insane. It's the right thing to do.

And I'm not going to do it.

I jut out my wrist and roll my eyes, feeling spiteful. Defiant. Like I'm going to prove some sort of point. "Just do it and stop making such a federal issue out of it."

I can see the shock fall over him. It cuts through that smirking bad boy, peeling back the edges until I catch of a glimpse of the tenderness he hates so much. The part of him he can never be truly free from.

Damon reaches for me, his fingers feather soft curling around my arm. His thumb brushes over the pale blue veins beneath my skin and I see wonder light his face.

God, he's beautiful. It's like his face is sculpted to catch light in all the right ways. When he's this close, wearing that magical look, it's hard for me to believe he was ever merely human.

I blink, looking down at where his hand holds my wrist. I'm shaking in his grasp. Correction. That's not me, it's _Damon_. He's trembling because he's touching me.

God, this is too intense. Too much. It's already too personal and his lips haven't come near me.

As if on cue, I look at his lips and lick my own. God what is wrong with me? This is not a big deal and it sure the hell isn't sexy. I did this with Stefan. Hell, Damon bit my neck not even a month ago, and both of those times it hurt like hell and made me dizzy. It was nothing like this. Nothing!

His thumb caresses the frantic flutter of my pulse over and over. I bite my lip and hold my breath, willing myself to calm down.

"You sure?" he asks softly.

No. No, I'm not _sure_. I'm pinioning wildly between terror and something that just might be desire and I don't like either one of them.

"I'm sure," I say, the lie slipping out as if I mean it with every ounce of me.

He brings my wrist to his mouth with a sigh. I don't know if it's bliss or relief, but when I feel his lips slide over my skin, I don't care. I don't care about _anything_.

I close my eyes and take a hard, sharp breath as his fangs pierce my skin. There is a sting and then nothing. It has to hurt more than this. It just has to. Any second now he'll suck a few hard mouthfuls and that excruciating pain will kick in and this will all be just another icky day in the life around vampires.

But it doesn't happen.

Damon just stretches his lips over my wrist and laves me with his tongue and I feel _every_ little lick. I feel it in places that make me flush brightly, my breath coming quicker with every stroke of his tongue.

Damon is frozen into place, as if his body is carved of marble, which it might as well be. All that is moving is his mouth. His soft, wet and surprisingly _warm_ mouth. Oh, God, he needs to hurry up. I can't take this. It's too—

I feel heat building at the apex of my legs and I curse myself for not knowing better. For not knowing this wouldn't be the same with him. _Nothing's_ the same with Damon.

He makes this little desperate sound in the back of his throat and I feel a familiar ache low in my belly. Oh hell, why is this doing this to me? Why am I so…no, I can't think _that_. It's too wrong. Too awful.

My heart is like a jackhammer now. I mean, seriously, I have to be spurting blood into his mouth. No wonder he's moaning. Vampires two counties away are probably feeling frisky.

I squirm a little and this time he groans louder. He wrenches himself free though, pressing three fingers hard to my bite as his head hangs, his breath coming hard and fast.

It's so quiet. I wish we'd done this on a busier street. Or that I'd hear sirens or thunder or a cat fighting in the alley. Anything thing would be better than this heavy space between us, where my ears ring with the desperate cadence of our breathing.

I shift on my feet, feeling slick between my thighs and shamed to my core. I try to step back, to run, really, but I forget that I've lost blood. My head spins, spots swimming through my vision. He pulls me against him with one arm, and of course it feels right.

I hate how right it feels.

"Why is everything like this with us?" I whisper, wishing at once that I could snag the words back. Swallow them down to the deep secret places where they belong.

"I don't know," he admits, releasing a shaky sigh into the crown of my head. His grip is so tight on my hips that I'm sure I'll bruise. "I have no damned idea."

**Day Twenty Three – Damon's POV**

The prodigal prick has returned.

You'll excuse me if I don't break out the champagne and ticker tape, but I'm a little fucking busy turning Chez Salvatore into the Betty Ford clinic for vampires. Plus, I'm still half hungover from drinking Elena's blood. Also known as, my shiny new personal crack.

Because ever since I've had it, I've been hopped up like a junkie looking for a fix, all bloodshot eyes and twitchy hands. Mind you, I haven't had a drop from her in _five_ days and I'm still zipping around my house like Speedy Gonzales on a bender.

Yeah, let me tell you, that was one hell of a trip home. It took like eighteen hours before my brain synapses could fire anything other than "Fuck her!" and "Bite her!" about thirty times a second. Fortunately, Elena was busy simmering in her stew of shame. We exchanged maybe a dozen words the entire forty-one hours home.

I handed her off to Ric around ten in the morning and sucked down five blood bags at home to try to get the taste of her out of my mouth.

No dice.

And after pacing grooves into every floor in this joint for a couple of days, Stefan arrived, covered in blood and passed out on my doorstep.

That's right. I came home hoping to swim around in the bottom of a bottle of scotch for a week or so, but the Stork came instead. Left me a bouncing baby boy, complete with big green eyes and a martyr complex.

So, like the good daddy I am, I hog-tied him on the basement floor.

Oh, relax, it wasn't _his_ blood. Well, I don't think it was his blood, anyway.

He's been mostly unconscious for the day or so that he's been here. Occasionally moaning maudlin bullshit like, "I'm not worth this life' and 'if my guilt were a blade…' blah, blah, blah. Stefan completely missed his calling. He should be on Broadway. Or maybe in a Woody Allen movie.

Alaric, who I called half an hour ago, under threat of death to breathe not a word of anything to Elena yet, tilts his head, eyeing Stefan. "Well, he looks—

"Like something a cat puked up," I finish for him, rubbing my temples. "The question is, why is he here and is Klaus involved?"

"You really haven't told Elena?"

"Not yet," I admit. "He begged me not to, and I wanted to make sure he wasn't faking before she rushed over for the Oscar-worthy moment."

Ric looks shocked. "You think she's just going to take him back? Like this?"

I roll my eyes. "It's Stefan, Ric. It's _always_ going to be Stefan."

"Glad to see you've got the bitter in check."

"Glad to see you're still rocking the lumberjack look," I say, eyeing his flannel as I toss him my house keys.

He looks at them, confused and a little alarmed. "You going somewhere?"

I laugh. "Obviously."

He doesn't even speak, just frowns so piteously that I half expect him to fall to his knees.

"Ugh, stop furrowing. You look like a televangelist." I pull on my jacket and spare a glance for my comatose brother. "Look, he's been knocked out and off of blood since he got here yesterday. Provided you don't tap a vein for him or let him out of the cage, you'll be safe as houses."

Ric's still working that earnest, wholesome look of his for all it's worth. "He's your brother, Damon. He needs you."

"Stefan needs a lot of things. A shower. A lobotomy. A laxative, probably. Trust me, I am _way_ down on that list."

Now, Ric's expression changes. He crosses his arms over his chest and nods. "Right, I get it."

I arch my brow and he holds his hands out, using gestures that I imagine come out in the classroom. "So, if I translate your Damon bullshit into actual English, you'd be saying, "I'm crazy about Elena and will lose my mind if I have to see her with my brother again.'"

I cock my head, not all that surprised he put it together. "Yeah, pretty much. You can call her in twenty minutes, by the way. I just need to grab a shower."

"No chance," he says, shaking his head. "If she's going to kick someone's ass, I'm opting for yours."

"My ass won't be here to kick. Call her or don't. It's your funeral."

Ric sighs low, muttering under his breath. "Dick."

I'm halfway up the stairs, washing my hands of Stefan, and her, and of the whole damned thing, really. Not my fucking problem anymore. But then, of course, I stop at the top, cringing because I can't help myself.

"Don't leave him alone with her and don't let her in that cage. No matter what shit she tries. Promise me."

"Won't happen," he says, and though I can't see his voice, I can hear the conviction in his tone. He doesn't trust him.

Good.

"I'll call you when I find anything on Klaus," I tell him.

"Don't be gone long," he says. "I am still a vampire _hunter_, you know."

I laugh at that. "Yeah, _Buffy_, I remember."

It takes me maybe fifteen minutes to shower and pack. I don't need much. A change or two of clothes. Some play money that I keep in an old shoebox in my closet.

Walking away should be a bigger deal than this, but in the end, it isn't. Jesus, why the hell didn't I do this months ago?

And am I _really_ doing this? Is this a few days, or a few decades?

_Does it matter?_

I give the house a final look and then open the front door. And nearly fall flat on my face.

You have _got_ to be shitting me.

She's standing there, hand raised to knock. Her white shirt works ten kinds of miracles against her golden skin. She flashes a smile that she wears like sunlight and miserable little fuck that I am, I can barely _breathe_ looking at her. My gaze falls over the shiny sheet of her hair, locking onto her eyes.

"You scared me," she says.

I say nothing. And she mistakes it for anger or resentment or something deeply meaningful, but it's not. Her appearance is a gigantic mindfuck, so I've pretty much gone catatonic. If I were a possum, I'd flop to the ground belly-up and stick out my tongue.

"I'm sorry I didn't call first," she says, shifting on her feet. Stalling, obviously. "I hadn't heard from you in a couple of days."

I give her nothing, still blinking vacantly while I wait for her to find a point in all this lip-biting and hair tucking she's doing. Suddenly, she throws back her shoulders, steeling herself.

"It wasn't pity," she says out of absolutely nowhere. "The kiss," she explains, as if I don't know _exactly _what she's talking about. God help me with her eyes burning at me like that, I am not going to stay in this trance much longer.

"It wasn't pity," she repeats more softly, shaking her head. "I don't get it, Damon. I don't understand the things I feel around you. I don't get—

She cuts herself off, thank God. Because I _can't_ hear this. If I hear this and then watch her float down those stairs with my brother's name on her lips and the promise of forever in her eyes, I will literally lose my shit right here on the front porch. Probably kill a bus full of nuns or burn down an orphanage or some crazy thing.

"Elena, don't," I say, lifting a hand.

But damn her to hell, she lifts hers too, reaching for mine and interlacing our fingers. Seriously? Fucking seriously? All she's doing is holding my hand and it's _electric_. And now she's coming so close that I'm breathing in the smell of her perfume and my cock's twitching like an eager puppy.

My eyes slide shut as I remind myself in small words that she is this doesn't matter. That _this_, whatever the fuck this is, goes absolutely _nowhere_ after she finds out about the skeleton in my basement.

"Don't what, Damon? Don't talk about it? Don't be honest? What, we're supposed to leave this elephant in the room forever?"

Her hands are hot and firm and planted on my neck and shit if that isn't changing my tune. I can see her looking up at me. She's saying something. Something she obviously means, but I'm not hearing a damn word because I know what she's about to do. I can see it, clear as day, in her face.

She's about to kiss me.

Yeah, that's right.

Elena Gilbert is licking her lips and giving me that soul-blistering gaze and I am, true as ever to my sex-loving self, am _all about_ this new development. Fuck leaving. Fuck Alaric or my baby brother in the basement. This is what I want.

She is what I want.

Always has been. Always will be.

I slide my hand into the hair at the nape of her neck and she takes a shuddering little breath that makes me wonder what other noises I'll get out of her.

And then she looks up at me, eyes brimming, and I remember the horror in her eyes when I slammed my wrist against her mouth before the Klaus showdown.

Son. of. a. bitch.

I _really_ fucking hate being a good guy.

"Elena, stop. We need to talk—

"We need to do more than talk for once," she says, and I'm not sure what she means and I don't have time to figure it out.

I don't have time to do anything because her little hands are on my cheeks and she's pushing her body into me, knocking me back against the side of the doorframe as she nails me with a kiss.

She is not pussying around with it either. She's balls to the wall right now, hands tangled in my hair, lips mashed hard against mine.

And fuck if I'm the guy to run off, virture fluttering. Before I can even register the shock, I'm hauling her closer, pulling her in, running my tongue between her lips even as my hand slides down the curve of her back, resting in the dip above her ass.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, alarms are ringing, whispering shit about the 'right thing' and the 'truth.' I guess it's my conscience, come back from the dead. But my dick is all too happy to smother that little righteous voice in favor of the feel of Elena's tits against my chest. And apparently, I'm not _that_ reformed, because I'm going with my cock on this one.

Something clatters inside the house and Elena pulls free of me, lips swollen and red, eyes glittering with fear and something else.

Something I'm not going to get the chance to investigate.

"Did you hear that?" she asks.

_Yes, Elena. That's the sound of your hatred, barreling towards me like a freight train once again._

I hear Ric's feet in the basement, his soft rustling as he rights whatever he knocked down. Elena just looks at me with an awful mix of shame and betrayal in her eyes. Betrayal? Oh, shit. She doesn't get it.

"It's not what you think," I sigh, wishing to God it was a girl inside my house right now. She might forgive me for a girl, but not this.

Never this.

"It's not a girl," I say, and her face lights up with something like a smile. Something like hope. Such a fragile thing shouldn't have the power to crush my soul. But it does.

To think she could be happy about that? Hell, to think she could give _two shits_ about the female company I'm keeping?

The expression fades like a candle snuffed out. My expression is to blame, I'm sure. The obvious agony I'm feeling has to be written in glaring neon lights all over my face. And of course, that's how she figures it out.

Her eyes well up, splotches of pink rising in her cheeks.

Her words come with more breath than voice when she speaks. And there is no question mark at the end.

"Stefan came home."

-TBC-


	7. Chapter 7

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own this show. If I did, I sure the heck wouldn't be waiting THREE months to get back to it (weeps)**

_A/N: I know. I really know. I swear if you had any idea how ridiculously bad things have been, you might forgive me. They've been bad to the point of just stupid. And I have to say my confidence has been so thrashed by the last month, that if I didn't have all of you, the most amazing, reviewers and readers in the world, I never would have had the guts to return._

_If you are happy to see this update and you are one of the lovely people who left a review, pat yourself on the back. It is your kindness that convinced me. No question._

_The bad news is, this chapter is NOT Damon/Elena heavy. I'm sorry. Really. There are some things that happen that I can't get around. And I'm really feeling a serious lack of confidence because I can't get quite thrilled with this one – it needs a little more editing, but at this point, I think I'm going to just let it go and get it up. I'm already done with the next chapter (just editing) because I didn't want to post anything until I knew I'd have another one up soon, but I still feel meh about this one._

_Last warning. Cliffhanger. Bad one._

_And despite ALL of that bad news, if you're really feeling kind and you're still enjoying this, please pop me a little review. It helps so much. Next chapter should be up Monday._

_**Day Thirty-one – Elena's POV**_

_Clearly I'm dodging your call, but you can leave a message if it makes you feel better._

I close my eyes at the sound of Damon's voicemail. I know this message by heart now. After seven times hearing it today (and countless times hearing it in the past), I could imitate the lilting rise and fall of each of his words.

"It's me," I blurt out after the beep, and then I let the following silence stretch long. As if it's an old answering machine and I'm waiting, hoping to God he'll pick up. Of course, he won't pick up.

I take a breath and go on. "I really think we need to talk, Damon. I know you tried to tell me Stefan was home. And I don't know if you think I'm mad or freaked out, but the truth is…"

_Go on, Elena. What exactly is the truth? _

The truth is I _kissed_ Damon. And all of the feelings I had, and probably still have, for Stefan didn't stop me. And since there was tongue and moaning involved this time (and nobody was dying) I'm pretty sure it won't be shrugged off as a pity kiss.

Damon's voicemail beeps, jarring me out of my reverie and cutting me off before I can finish. It's probably better that way. What the hell was I going to say that would explain it?

I stuff my phone deep into my purse and glance at the boarding house outside my windshield. The irony of calling Damon from his own driveway isn't lost on me. Damned vampire is getting on my last nerve.

I slip out of the car and into the boarding house, dropping my keys on a table inside. It's freshly wiped and gleaming like everything else in this mausoleum of a house. There are even a couple of vases of fresh flowers.

I scowl at them, imagining Damon here just moments ago, trimming off the dead leaves before diving out the back window when he heard my engine. I'd really like to know how the hell Damon is managing to dodge me and play Martha Stewart at the same time. If Ric is helping him somehow, so help me I will kill them both.

"Alaric? Hello?" I call out.

Nothing. Huh. He's usually on watch around this time. Damon wouldn't have left Stefan alone, would he?

"You fall asleep down there?" I holler.

Banging and a shout filter through the floor from the basement. And then Alaric's voice. Strained. "Stay up there, Elena! Don't come down!"

My heart jumps to my throat. I can't get to the stairs fast enough, flying down them towards the basement where I can hear chains rattle and bars shudder. The cell comes into view and I take a sharp breath, surveying the scene.

_Stefan._ Stefan, who's been unconscious or slumped in a slurred-speech stupor in the corner, is now a blur of long limbs zipping back and forth at an unbelievable pace inside the cage.

Alaric stands in the cramped space before it, a crossbow at his shoulder and a phone to his ear.

"How fast is fast?" he asks the person on the phone.

Damon. It has to be Damon.

"Break laws if you need to," Ric sighs, and then drops the phone and spares me a fleeting glance. "Get back, Elena. Please."

Stefan stops his manic pacing and for one moment everything is still. I wait, expecting his face to appear behind the bars, his eyes dark and full of pain. My name on his lips like a prayer.

I'm half right.

His face looms closer to the bars, but there is nothing even close to pain in his eyes. If I had to pick a word, I'd go with gleeful. I watch him inhale, long and hard, his fangs glittering and lips and chin red and slick.

Wait a minute – that's blood. And we're not feeding him.

"Elena," Stefan says darkly, and it is his voice but not. His smile, but twisted in a way that sours my stomach.

"I've missed you," he says, tongue sliding between his teeth and eyes flicking to my neck.

I feel sick.

And that's before I see Alaric's hand. A jagged bite tears across his palm and up the flesh between his ring finger and his pinkie, blood still dripping down his arm. And down Stefan's chin.

"Yeah, I know," Ric says, noticing my gaze. "I'm an idiot. Now go upstairs before he manages something worse."

I ignore the demand and inch closer, looking for something to wrap Ric's hand or maybe some vervain to cram down Stefan's throat. Darts! We need one of those darts!

I clear my throat, determined to sound unaffected. "Ric, where's your…"

"You looking for one of these?" Stefan asks, holding up a vervain dart. I have no idea how he got that in the cell, but it's clear he's been hatching this plan for awhile. He tosses the dart away and shakes his head. "I'm afraid I've been up to all sorts of trouble, honey."

Alaric's brow creases miserably and I know without asking he doesn't have more darts. At least not here.

"Have you missed me, Elena?" Stefan asks.

My heart is pounding and my hands are shaking and this isn't how it's supposed to be. He was supposed to wake up and call my name softly, guilt tattooed so plainly on his face that it would soften up the edges of all this hate.

I came here every day ready to be conflicted. Hurt. A thousand things, really. But not once did I think I'd be revolted. Not like this.

Stefan sniffs lightly at the bars and his eyes go even darker. "Oh, you brought me a present, didn't you?"

I don't quite get what he means or why the words set my teeth on edge. He sniffs again, licking his lips. And I still don't understand. Until his eyes flick to my zipper. My pelvis.

My period.

Oh God, I'm on my period and he can—he can—

I think I'm going to be sick and Alaric suddenly gets it, too, because he jabs the crossbow towards the bars and spits out a succession of words I'm sure he's never used in the teacher's lounge.

Stefan just laughs at him, rolling his head around like he's getting ready to box.

"Get the fuck back," Ric snarls again and somehow that one word makes me flinch more than all of Stefan's put together.

Stefan does step back. But I hear him take a breath and plant his feet in a way that I know can't be good.

There is a burst of rushing inside the cell and—_WHAM_—the frame bends sharply at the latch. Ric and I exchange a horrified glance and then Stefan rams it again. There is a terrible shriek of metal and I see the door shift. Just a little.

Just enough.

"Run!" Alaric says, a breath before the door explodes open.

I see Stefan flying out and Alaric leaping in front of me. He's in the air and thrown against the brick wall before I can even form a scream.

And then Stefan turns for me.

I'm scrambling, adrenaline rushing as I see him reach for me, mouth wide and fangs ready.

My scream is cut off when someone slides in front of me taking the fangs meant for my neck in his own. I feel a hard hand pushing at my belly, propelling me towards the stairs. Damon's hand.

"Would you mind getting your teeth out of my throat?" Damon asks, as if this is all very ordinary.

Stefan hauls back, trying to get around Damon, snapping left and right like a pitbull. Damon only just manages to keep in front of him, his hands raised in a placating fashion.

"Won't work. I've seen this movie, Stefan," he says, shaking his head. "The psychopath never gets the girl."

"I already _had_ the girl!" Stefan growls, the veins in his neck corded in stark relief. My palms are sticky with sweat and I feel waves of nausea at his expression.

Damon scoffs, unfazed. "Well, the psychopath doesn't get her back either, dipshit!"

"She's mine if I want her! Mine to fuck. Mine to drink. Mine to throw away."

"Wrong," Damon says.

He stabs Stefan with something. I can't see what it is, but the cry Stefan lets out comes with a gurgle. I will my feet to run, because I don't want to see this. I want to un-see and un-hear _everything_ that's just happened. But I feel frozen in place. Stuck.

Stefan is still groaning, hunched over and reaching for whatever weapon Damon used, but Damon won't let him at it.

Damon says something then, but I can't make it out. I shake my head, wondering if I've lost my hearing. Or maybe my mind. But then I realize I'm not crazy, and Damon's not speaking in tongues. It's French.

He knows French.

Not the way I know it, little stilting bits picked up in my two required foreign language classes. He knows it like he was born there, the words flowing out so quickly and beautifully that I can only catch a few of them here and there. His mouth was made to form these words, his talented tongue placing just the right emphasis, creating the perfect inflections.

Stefan's human face emerges at something Damon says, something I can't quite catch. Then he shakes it away, bringing his monster back to the surface.

"I'm not here for her, Damon. I don't give a—

Stefan's words cut off in an agonizing scream as Damon twists whatever he's stabbed him with. Otherwise, he acts as if Stefan never said a thing, just continuing on, his voice low and deadly despite the beauty of the language.

"This is who we are!" Stefan screams in response, snapping his teeth for good measure. "_This_ is what I'm meant for."

Damon laughs, and his voice changes as he breaks into English. "Stefan, Stefan. Cruella Deville is more bad ass than you."

Stefan draws back and then he punches Damon, right in the stomach. But it isn't just a punch. I hear something. A soft, fleshy puncture that goes through me like a blade of ice.

No.

No. No. No. No.

Damon stumbles on his feet and I feel my knees giving out.

"How's this for bad ass, Damon?" Stefan asks.

I surge forward, but Alaric holds me back with both arms.

"Please," I say, but I don't really say it. I don't even whisper it because I have no voice. No air at all left in me, it's just my lips mouthing the word. Everything has been sucked into a black hole in the center of my chest, the black hole that would drop me to the floor if Ric wasn't holding me up.

"I can rip your fucking heart out right now," Stefan says.

Damon gives a soft, weak laugh and shakes his head, whispering something else in French. Something just slow enough and basic enough for me to translate.

"Elle est mon coeur."

"_She is my heart."_

His words are still slamming into me when I see Damon crumple to the floor.

Someone is screaming. It's a horrible keening sound that hurts my ears and my head. And my throat, too, because it's coming from me.

I look up at Stefan's face, finding something akin to horror there. There aren't words for the things I feel, sharp, biting things that surge through me like a burst of adrenaline. I spring towards him, ready to kill, but Ric holds me fast.

"He's alive, Elena. He's alive."

Alive?

I glance at Stefan, whose hands are slicked red like his teeth. But they are empty. I turn to Damon just in time to see his lashes flutter, a groan slipping past his lips.

I choke in one greedy gulp of air and drop to the ground in a heap. Alaric lets me. Crouches behind me with his hands on my shoulders. As if that's going to help.

"Damon." I think it's me saying it, but it's not.

It's Stefan.

He's crying now, tears cutting tracks through his filthy face. He's kneeling by his brother, pulling Damon's head and shoulders off the ground. And now he's the one speaking in French, though not as seamlessly as his brother did. It doesn't matter. I wouldn't need to know the language to understand these are apologies slipping off his lips.

Damon's still barely got his eyes open when Stefan hauls him all the way up, his arm around his waist.

Damon coughs weakly, sagging into his brother's side. "And I'm the psychotic one?

"I'm sorry," Stefan says. "I'll make this right."

"You could start by putting me down. And then a Tic Tac or twenty."

"You belong with me," Stefan says, his grip tightening. "I know that now."

Alaric draws back and I see something sharp in his hand. I leap in front of him, because I don't know who he'll hit, and I don't know if I can lose either of them. Damon shifts, too, instinctively protecting Stefan.

"What are you doing?" Alaric asks, voice cracking.

Damon's eyes are so sad they hurt my soul. "He's my brother, Ric."

Reluctantly, Ric lowers the weapon and Stefan starts for the stairs, dragging Damon along.

He's going to take him. He's going to take him away from me. Stupid things flash through my mind. Not the big moments that changed everything, but the stupid jokes. The rolled eyes and thrown pillows and long looks we've both denied. Every stupid thing feels so damned big, and what does that mean? What am I supposed to do with that if he's not here.

"Stefan, please," I cry, stopping just short of begging.

I wish Stefan had never come home. I wish it hard and long, like Dorothy with her ruby slippers. And I know it's sick and so unbelievably wrong, but I don't care. All I care about now is making him stay. Keeping him here.

"It's alright, Stefan," Damon pleads, but his eyes are on me. Right on me. "This'll all be alright."

He smiles and I feel the protest welling up in me with my tears. I open my mouth, but they are up the stairs and out of the house. Gone before I have the chance to say a thing.

**Day Thirty Four – Damon's POV**

I smell like Stefan's armpit.

And blood. And take-out Chinese, because apparently, the most powerful vampire in the known universe prefers smelly above-restaurant apartments to five star hotels. Nothing says living large like roaches in your bathroom sink.

"You going to eat that?" Stefan asks, toeing the long-dead drug addict at my feet. She slumped to her death beside the chair I'm sitting on, one arm hidden beneath me where the rats can gnaw in peace. I know they're gnawing because I can _hear_ them.

Oh yeah. The place is chock fucking full of charm.

"I'll pass," I say and then give him a bright smile. "Say, if you're bored, how's about you rub the two brain cells you have left _real hard_ until you remember that _you_ are not the second coming of Hannibal Lecter."

Stefan crosses his arms and looks superior and vaguely amused. The fact that he'd still use this look in full throttle evil-mode is just sad. "You think this isn't me, Damon?"

"No, Stefan, I don't." I say. "_You_ are a self-righteous prick who probably gives last rites to the bunnies you off in the woods. _You'd_ go to confession if you used an expired coupon—

Stefan cuffs me hard in the face, snarling behind his fangs. "You don't get to talk to me like that."

I'd hit him right back if I wasn't hog-tied to this damned chair. But things being as they are, I swallow blood and smirk up at him. "Only your pimp can use dirty talk? Speaking of that, where _is_ Tito? Lining up tricks for your Friday night?"

Stefan's eyes dart around, his face going pale. "You can't say things like that, Damon. You know who he is. What he's capable of."

"I know he bathes in cologne and has absolute shit taste in lodging," I sigh, wrinkling my nose. "Seriously, Stefan, is this the pinnacle of your dastardly plan? You finally give into the Dark Side so you can…what? Be an evil henchman?"

"This isn't about being evil," Stefan says, leaping up with that old familiar fire in his eyes.

My brother, the walking crusade. He needs a damned cause the way most people need air. Too bad this one's on the wrong side of the moral compass.

"This is about being what we are, Damon," he says. "We're not human! We can't live by their standards."

"I'm not saying you should buy a minivan and move to the burbs. But, look around you! This is starting to look like a bad Quentin Tarantino flick."

"I'm a predator. This is what I'm made for. This is what I am," Stefan says, for, oh, maybe the eighteen billionth time since we arrived three days ago.

And I've had it up to here with _this_ bullshit. If I had the use of my hands, I would rip off my ears and eat them to save myself from this vampire altar call.

I interrupt him before he can go on. "This _isn't_ what we're made for. And right now while you keep chanting your little vampire mantra, Elena is—

"Don't you say her name!"

"What, you afraid if I say it too much she'll just poof into the room?" Stefan's eyes are getting buggy. The idea of getting them to pop out is seriously entertaining.

"Elena," I say, smirking. "Elena, Elena, _Eh-lay-nah_!"

I'm not exactly sure what happens next. Stefan lets out this growl, which is like the starting pistol to the world's most ridiculous temper tantrum. The entire room gets thrown around. Nightstands and dressers and a couple of the dead girl's limbs. It's like Poltergeist meets a Freddy Krueger flick. Blood and destruction and a really bad soundtrack thanks to Stefan's iPod droning on. God knows how he manages to not destroy that.

He's blah-blah-blah'ing on about instinct and the call of blood and some other ridiculous bullshit. When he slams his fist into my chair, I hear something splinter and crack.

It's not much. A jagged tear in the wood that _might_ be enough to get my hands free.

Might, my ass. I've been in here three days too long already. You can't even imagine the kind of things I have seen, heard, and yes, _smelled_, in the last seventy-two hours. Stefan fucking Elena in my bed while I watched would be easier to endure.

Well, more visually pleasant at any rate.

"I'm going to need a longer leash for you," Klaus says, announcing his arrival. God, he is a shit villain. Always propped up in some doorway, delivering some accented monologue that's about as interesting as a grocery list. Surely he could have picked up a _few_ good one-liners over the past zillion years he's been alive.

This time, though, there is no monologue. He just clucks his tongue like a disappointed pet owner.

Maybe this is why we're in this dive. Klaus doesn't think his new lapdog is fit for the high life before a little more obedience training. I briefly envision Klaus chasing my brother around the room with a rolled up newspaper.

"What seems to be the problem?" he asks Stefan, pushing some glass aside with the toe of an Italian shoe that's probably worth more than this whole building.

"Nothing. Brother stuff," Stefan says with an awkward shrug.

Oh, yeah. Blood is _dripping_ from the ceiling and I'm still trussed up like a chicken, but sure. Klaus will buy that.

"I had a great way of dealing with _brother stuff_," Klaus says, with a smile that's anything but friendly.

Stefan looks back at me and for the first time since this started, his human face emerges, green eyes flashing an emotion I wasn't sure he was still capable of.

Fear.

My mouth opens, ready to say his name. I only just hold it back in time.

Then the fangs are back and Stefan is fisting a jagged edge of a picture frame. A big wooden one.

"You're right," he growls to Klaus, and then, to me, "This hurts me more than it hurts you, _brother_."

Then, just as quick as you please, Stefan actually figures out how to be a bad ass. He grabs my neck and rips me off the chair, breaking both of my wrists freeing me from the arms and then he rams that stake straight through my middle.

Before I can process the pain, I process that I am flying. Backwards. Through a window. I see my brother's face just before I fall.

And no, my long existence doesn't flash through my mind.

Just Elena.

Life is a real bitch that way.

-TBC—


	8. Chapter 8

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own this show. If I did, I sure the heck wouldn't be waiting THREE months to get back to it (weeps)**

A/N: *gasp* What? An update? Without a MONTH long wait? What is this new madness? Hopefully the new norm. Well, not QUITE this quick, but quicker than that last nonsense. I'm expecting Chapter 9 this weekend – probably Sunday, if I'm honest, but I'm going to try hard for sooner. This, too, could use another couple rounds of edits - but I don't want to end up in a vortex of not updating. Again. :P

Furthermore, please know I'm beyond touched by your kindness and support. I was gone for so long and you have been just….AMAZING. I truly feel that those who've never experienced the joy and community found in fan fiction are really missing out. You are all absolutely fantastic and I am unbelievably grateful. So grateful, I will chain myself to a chair and get another chapter out STAT.

Oh…and one last thing…this one actually earns the M rating. Explicit Adult Content….not the blood/gore violence variety, either. So if that's not your thing, you need to skip the last three pages. And if you're okay with it…please, please review! It's a little nerve wracking going a little "adult" but I felt this story warranted it.

**DAY 34 – Damon's POV**

_Before I can process the pain, I process that I am flying. Backwards. Through a window. I see my brother's face just before I fall._

_And no, my long existence doesn't flash through my mind. _

_Just Elena. _

_Life is a real bitch that way._

Stefan lands seconds after me, crouching over me as if to be make sure I'm dead. And then he leans in so lose that for one insane second, I think he's going to kiss me. We're already plenty dysfunctional enough, so I'm pretty fucking relieved when he starts whispering instead.

"Stake me."

Well, well. Looks like Mickey Martyr is still in there. Nice that he decides to figure that out _after_ tossing me out a second story window. Also, he could use a damn Tic Tac. Or twenty.

I know Klaus is watching from above. And I know Stefan's trying to look like he's savoring the kill.

"Make it look good or he'll never believe it," he says.

Now, I know goody-goody Stefan is about as much fun as an insurance seminar, but I don't really want to stake him. Then again, I don't want him to go back to the moustache-twirling joke that evil Stefan is, either

Before I can pull the stake free of my chest to plunge it into his eye or something, I hear sirens. Lots of them. Distantly, I hear several people chatting in what I think is Chinese. Apparently the restaurant owners heard my brother's hissy fit and decided to call the authorities.

Wait a minute, was that the point? Did he somehow plan that? And more importantly, am I about to be saved by the _police_?

The irony of this would be killing me if the stake in my chest wasn't so fucking close to claiming that job for itself.

The sirens are wailing closer now. I can see flashes of red and blue behind my closed eyes.

"Do it!" Stefan whispers again.

"Stefan!" Klaus's voice calls out from the top story. It's both a warning and command. Stefan, who apparently lives to jump through hoops regardless of his morality, obeys.

By the time I open my eyes, Klaus and Stefan are gone and police cars are skidding to a stop nearby.

I'm free…ish.

Since I doubt the deputies of Podunk, Nowhere would really appreciate my mutant healing, I take advantage of every rank drop of the crack-head blood my brother forced down my throat yesterday. And I run.

Two hundred miles and one stolen car later, I cross the county line to good old Mystic Falls. I abandon the car a few miles outside of town and head for home on foot.

I really should have stopped to feed. Or maybe to die. Dying would work. It sounds like a really long nap and I could use one of those.

I take a shortcut off-road, cutting through a couple of neighborhoods. Probably not my most bad-ass-mother-fucker moment, limping through swingsets and picket fences, jumping at every odd noise. I finally make my way to the forest behind my house. When I step through the trees into my backyard, I damn near collapse in the grass, my vision swimming.

No. No fucking way I'm dying in this bug-infested field when I can see my bedroom window. There's a ten thousand dollar mattress dressed in butter-soft sheets in that room.

Plus, so long as Barbie didn't stop by, there should be a bag or two of A-Positive in the fridge.

I pant and wheeze my way to the back door like an eighty year old smoker. When I finally make it to the kitchen, there's _one_ bag of blood in the fridge—if that little Marilyn Monroe wannabe so much as _looked _at my scotch, I'll kill her—so I down it and head for the stairs.

I'm sure there weren't this many stairs the last time I was here. It's like they're breeding. Or maybe they're like those staircases in those M.C. Escher prints, going on and on without getting me any closer to the top.

I reach the second floor what feels like six years later. At this point, my bed sounds better than sex. Better than blood. I can already feel my sheets.

No, my shower.

I've been in outhouses that smelled better than I probably do right now. I'm not even sure a shower's going to help. I should probably just peel off my skin and try to start over from there. Still, I'm already imagining that stream of scalding water when I push open my bedroom door.

And then I freeze.

My mouth drops open, my chest squeezing into a knot.

_Elena. _

Elena is in my bed. Her dark hair curves over the stark white of my pillow. Not _a_ pillow, _my_ pillow. My pillow, my bed, my sheets twisted around those long, golden limbs of hers.

For one split second, I think I must have fallen down the stairs and knocked myself out. But, this isn't a dream. If this were a dream, you can bet your ass I wouldn't be wearing three days of stink and a crusty coating of blood. And Elena wouldn't be wearing pajama pants with little frogs hippity-hopping up and down her legs.

_She_ wouldn't be wearing anything.

And I'd be wearing her out.

I gauge my options.

Okay, maybe that's a stretch. Mostly, I just stand there like a mute cow, staring at the absolutely impossible fact that Elena Gilbert is in my bed.

I shift on my feet and she sits up with a gasp. She produces a stake—good girl—and shows me wide, terrified eyes. Scared shitless and wearing cartoon pants and she still makes my mouth go dry.

Did I mention that she's in _my_ bed? It seems pretty fucking pertinent.

"Damon?" she asks, her voice cracking

I'd answer, but I can't remember English. Or any other language, for that matter. I could probably manage some sort of monosyllabic grunt, but she's out of the bed before I can bother.

She flies across the floor and tackles me like a linebacker, arms around my middle so tight I see stars. I groan for several reasons. Pain's not the most interesting on the list, but it's the one she seems to read when her head jerks up.

"You're hurt! God, you're a mess!"

"I'm fine," I say, though she's already checking me, her hot little fingertips testing my chest and belly, then tugging up my shirt to examine me in detail.

I think of telling her all the other things she can check, but if I did she might stop touching me. So, I sit there because apparently the lapdog gene runs in our DNA. Elena's touch turns whisper soft when she reaches the stake wound.

"Did he do this to you? Stefan. Where _is_ Stefan?"

His face flashes through my mind, the fear that bloomed on his face for that moment before he staked me, the urgency in his voice when he asked me to stake him.

I left him. I just left him there.

The guilt sluices over me like a cold shower and I do pull back then, grimacing. "It's a long, shitty story. Reader's Digest version: I failed."

She shakes her head like she doesn't understand.

"I ran, Elena. Stefan gave me a chance and I took it. And I know it's the shit—

"Good," she says, cutting me off. Her eyes are as fierce as I've ever seen them.

I slow down, using small words because clearly she's not getting it. "Stefan's there. I'm here. This is the opposite of good."

"I don't care," she says.

I tilt my head, challenging that with a look. She cares alright. She cares and I care and all of her little friends care. We're like the goddamned Care Bears of the vampire world. We should have a fucking theme song with all of our white hat bullshit and, Jesus, I should have gotten him out of there.

"He could have killed you," she says, voice barely a whisper.

"No, he couldn't have," I say just as softly. "He's in there, Elena. Stefan is still in there. He's fucked up six ways from Sunday, but he's in there. And I'm going back from him."

"Y-You can't," she says. "Not yet."

Her voice carries an absolute conviction that kind of pisses me off.

"You planning on trying to stop me?"

"Yes."

I open my mouth to tell her just where she can shove her plan when I see that she's about to cry. And for the first time, I'm pretty sure this doesn't have anything to do with Stefan. This is about _me_.

Well, that's…I don't know what that is. Or what to say to it. So, for once in my very long life, I shut the hell up and wait for her.

"I can't keep almost losing you," she says, her hands moving to my face.

She looks at me and I look at her and I swear to God somebody should burst into a ballad about hearts going on, because we are turning into a scene from The Titanic. And yeah, I'd love to stand here all day pretending we're flying into the sunset, but I saw that movie. And I know who goes down with the fucking ship.

I break her gaze and start towards the bathroom. "I need to get cleaned up."

"Right," she says.

I'm already at the sink, yanking my shirt over my head when she calls after me. My name on her lips. She might as well have a leash.

I head around the corner, not bothering to pretend I'm too modest to come out half dressed. To her credit, she doesn't bother pretending she's embarrassed.

Her hair is sticking up and she's got smudges of mascara under her eyes and a crease from my sheets down her left cheek. She's so fucking beautiful I feel like I can't breathe.

And I don't _need _to breathe.

She opens her mouth to say something, and then it's like she can't say anything. It's like we're both just trapped in this crazy space, where neither one of us can inhale or form words. We just stand there, staring so damned hard into each other that it's a miracle we don't actually switch bodies.

"Did it hurt?" she asks.

She's asking about the wound, about Stefan staking me. But all I can think about is the thirty-eight hours I was away from her. Knowing damned well she was scared out of her mind. And yeah, I've taken blades that hurt less than that.

"Every last minute," I say.

**Day 39 – Elena's POV**

How exactly is this happening? I mean, really? I am standing in a forest preparing to serve as a blood sacrifice to an evil vampire.

_Again._

At least this time, there aren't any witches or fires or biting. Just me and Damon. I mean, we've got a pocketknife, a jar, and an envelope full of intervention-style letters addressed to Stefan, but otherwise, that's it.

I shudder and Damon looks at me. I can tell he wants to touch me, but he doesn't. And I look down like I don't notice and it's all completely stupid. It was my idea, the Let's Not Touch game. I'd been so tense that night he got home. I handed him two glasses after his shower, blood and scotch, and jerked my fingers back when he brushed them. He learned the rules fast.

We've been like this for five days, like cars on a Tilt-o-Whirl. Always hurtling towards each other, never quite contacting.

"You sure you want to do this?" he asks, jarring me back to the present.

I push my hair behind my ear and sigh. "Do we have a better plan?"

"A week in Tahiti with enough rum to forget all about my damned brother," he grumbles, and I smirk.

But he doesn't mean it. He's worried sick about Stefan now. He paces the house most of the day and barely sleeps at night. And I would know, because I haven't left the place since he got home.

Yeah, that's right. I'm not going to _touch_ him, but I lie on the coach beneath his bedroom, where I can hear him tossing and turning inside his covers. I'm pretty sure a therapist would have a field day with me.

"You ready?" he asks, and he holds up the blade with a little playful shake of the wrist that doesn't match the tension in his eyes.

I wipe my palms down the front of my jeans. Sweaty. "Bonnie cast the spell, right?"

"Boy-Lassie couldn't smell you, could he?"

"Right," I say, reminding myself that Tyler tried from a variety of distances.

"I'd swear she knew about that spell the whole time," Damon says, scowling. "The whole 'mask your scent from werewolves' bit would have come in real handy when Jules was jonesing to get her teeth in my ass."

"What if it doesn't work on Klaus? He's not just a werewolf, Damon. He's a vampire, too."

Damon glances up at the moon, round and white in the black sky. "Not tonight, he's not."

"I just hate all these variables," I say. Stalling.

"The letters will work," Damon says, cutting to the chase. "You little ill-educated internet children may find this hard to grasp, but in the eighteen-hundreds, we lived for our letters. And if you hadn't noticed from the stacks of mildewing tomes in his room, Stefan isn't exactly one to let go of the past."

I laugh, and of course, that's when he cuts me. He does it quick, an apology in his eyes even if it doesn't cross his lips. He pours just a little of my blood into the mason jar and places the envelope beside it.

"Are you sure he'll smell my blood?"

"As long as Bonnie's witchy instincts are right about him not leaving, he'll smell you the second he opens the door. Trust me, he'll find the letters, Elena."

"And then what?"

"And then he'll be overridden with guilt. Guilt and his inborn need to be a hero who uses too much hair product." Damon shrugs. "Trust me, Elena. He had the broody brows going at one point. It'll take a few days of hair-pulling, but he will come home."

Somehow I know he's right. What I don't know is why I'm not relieved.

We pick our way back through the forest to the spot on the road where Damon left the motorcycle. He starts the engine and helps me with my helmet, still mindful not to brush my face with his fingers. Like I said, we've been careful.

So careful.

I climb onto the back of the bike and hold onto the little metal bar behind me. And I wonder how much longer we can keep doing this.

**Day 39 – Damon's POV**

I don't remember waking up. I don't remember being asleep or dreaming or anything startling me. All I remember is sitting up to find Elena, cross-legged at the foot of my bed.

I stare a long time, willing this mirage to go away, but she doesn't. She just sits there like a statue, her hair a ribbon of black between her shoulder blades.

"I do want him home," she says, as if we're right in the middle of this conversation. I can hear that she's been crying. "Part of me wants it so much it hurts."

She turns then, her ass sliding on my duvet with a delicious hiss. "I have to say that, I know. But it is true. It's just not the whole truth."

She licks her lips and looks at me intently.

Yeah, I'm not sure what fortune cookie she opened tonight, but I'm pretty sure Jack Daniels wrote it. And when she drops down to hands and knees and starts heading my way, I start thinking his buddy Jose Cuervo might have been involved, too.

Liquid courage is the only possible explanation for any of this. Granted, Elena may not be turning tricks on Main Street, but surely she's seen enough movies to know that the panther crawl is only slightly less pointed than mailing a guy an invitation to nail you, and— fucking hell, is she seriously going to crawl right up here? If she doesn't stop soon, she's going to be on my lap.

Of course, she stops.

Sits up on her knees looking as prim and virginal as the cast of Little House on the Prairie. She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and lowers her voice to a whisper.

"But sometimes, I don't know," she blurts. She's got tears in her eyes and tits spilling halfway out of her tank top. "I know what we have to do. How it has to be. I know what he needs. I know what I need _to do_. But sometimes I don't know if that's the same as what _I need_."

I'll tell you what she needs. She needs to take that fucking shirt off.

Correction. She needs _me_ to take that shirt off. With my teeth. Followed by her pants.

_Followed by her hating you until she finally gives in and has the witch kill you._

I curl my fingers in my sheets so I don't rip anything off of her. And she takes a shuddery little breath that makes my cock twitch.

"Why is this so impossible?" she asks.

Oh, it's possible, alright. I'm seeing about three dozen possibilities, most involving her pinned beneath me, groaning my name.

I can feel her breath now, right against my lips. And fucking hell she smells like all things girly and sweet. My whole middle is twisting in on itself. I haven't needed someone like this since before _electricity_ was invented. My whole fucking body hurts, I want her that bad.

"Just once," she says, her eyes drifting to half-mast as she leans even closer. "I have to know. Just once."

My eyes fly wide. Just once? Just once so I can live the next billion years obsessed with two hours of my life that I can never relive? Uh, no. Hell to the Fuck to the No.

I close my eyes and grit my teeth, because this has to end. Right now. "Back up."

She ignores that, her hair brushing my chest. She's not fucking around. She's going to take this all the way and back, and then in the morning her white knight will arrive and it will be Stefan. _Always._

Rage rushes through me, almost as hot as the lust.

"You need to back the fuck off, Elena."

"What?" she asks softly. I can hear the hurt in her tone, so I keep my eyes closed. I can't handle her eyes. I can barely handle her voice.

"Fucking with the head of the highly unstable vampire who'd sell his soul for one night with you? Not your best plan."

I don't open my eyes when her heart skips a beat. Or when she slides off the bed, though I can see her smooth, bare legs so well in my mind that I might as well be watching. But then, she leans down and I feel the soft press of her forehead against mine.

"I'm sorry," she says, voice so small and broken that it feels like glass. "I'm _so_ sorry."

Was that a sob?

Fucking hell.

I will not look at her. I will _not_ get off of this bed. I will sit here and be noble and shit until she sniffles her way out of my room and then I will go into the bathroom and find a way to kill myself with decorative soaps and a toothbrush because I can't fucking believe I am sending her out of this room.

I hear her hand on the door knob.

Yeah, nobility can suck my cock.

I'm across the room and standing in front of her, barely dressed and breathing hard. And she's blinking up at me, those dark eyes promising possibilities I can't afford to believe in.

I believe in them anyway.

"I'm a liar," I say. "I'm a dick and a liar and I'm _begging_ to you not to walk out of this door right now."

She shakes her head, tears glimmering on her cheeks and making her chin tremble. "No, you were right. I need to go."

"Fuck being right. Stay." I touch her face, barely letting my fingers feather over the curve of her jaw. "Stay, Elena. Please."

Her sigh is half-pleasure, half-anguish. She shakes her head and takes in a ragged breath. "I hate what I'm becoming. I hate that I'm like this."

She's sputtering and choking on her words, so I hold her face with both hands, taking it in, letting her crumble.

"I don't know why I can't stop," she cries. "Why can't I stop with you, Damon?"

I hush her with a kiss. Our eyes are open and our lips are gentle. It's so tender, it's damned near chaste. Until she sighs into my mouth. Then it's a whole new ballgame.

A whole new fucking _universe_.

Kissing Elena, _really_ kissing her, is so damned good you'd think we invented the concept. It's all slow burn and intensity, a soft, wet push of tongues and lips and hunger. And I am eating it up, the sugar of her taste and the scrape of her fingernails on my shoulders and even the hints of whatever fruity horseshit gave her the balls to make her way to my bedroom tonight.

Speaking of said horseshit…

I wrench free of her mouth, my hands caught in the weight of her hair. "Are you drunk?"

"Yes," she pants out, crossing her arms behind my neck, but pulling back enough to frown at me. "How far are you taking this good guy thing?"

"Not that far," I admit.

I pick her up and kiss her deeper, pulling low, eager sounds out of her with every stroke of my tongue. Her legs go around me and she fits me like a second skin.

I have no idea what happened to the nervous little girl who blushed when I flashed her flirty eyes, because this Elena is squeezing my hips so hard between her thighs that it's making my head spin. I back her into my dresser, lowering her down just enough to get my hands free. I palm her breasts and she arches her back for me, breaking free of my lips to whimper as my thumbs graze her nipples.

"Hell, Elena," I breathe softly, and then then I'm pulling her shirt over her head and there she is, flushed cheeks and dark hair framing those perfect breasts.

It's not supposed to be like this. I'm not supposed to be a trembling idiot, staring until I can see her moving to cover her chest with her hands.

"Don't," I say softly, gently pulling her arms open.

"You're staring," she says.

"You're perfect."

I see the smile in her eyes even if it doesn't quite reach her kiss-swollen lips. I stroke her lightly, watching my fingers glide over the swell of her breasts, her nipples pebbling beneath my touch.

I bend down, licking a trail down to each breast, savoring the way she thrashes and groans almost as much as the taste of her skin. I suck one nipple hard into my mouth and she knots her fingers in my hair, groaning my name.

I pull back, fangs descending, and try to get my shit together. But Elena doesn't want steady. Or slow. She's clawing at my shirt, ripping at my pants.

"Easy," I tell her through gritted teeth. Her hands still and I can tell she's watching me. But I can't force my fangs back. I'm like a twelve year old sporting a hard-on at the pool.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"Have you met me?" I ask, incredulous.

She laughs and it's like the fucking sun just rose in my bedroom. She's so damned bright, she blisters my soul.

"I am ape-shit crazy about you," I say and her smile turns to something else. Something deeper.

She touches my face, pulling me down. "Damon…"

A thundering pounding sounds on the front door downstairs and Elena jumps, arms crossing over her chest.

.

"Open up, Damon," Alaric says from beyond the front door.

I'll kill him. I mean, Ric's a swell guy with good taste in scotch, but he's just going to have to die.

And then, as if he somehow realizes I'm about to slice him open and eat his liver, he adds, "I'm sorry, man. He's got Caroline."

-TBC-


	9. Chapter 9

DISCLAIMER: I don't own this show. If I did, I sure the heck wouldn't be waiting THREE months to get back to it (weeps)

_A/N: I'm late. I'm sure you're shocked. But I'm not as late as the last time at least, right? Right? *bats eyes and really REALLY hopes for forgiving readers*_

_Okay, all. Brace yourselves. This one is treading into seriously depressing territory. And I'm scared to death (I've delayed posting twice because I'm *that* scared) because I know y'all are down with the funny har-har and this is just…*sigh* Not so light hearted. It's the whole darkest before the dawn thing. BUT….that dawn is coming. Oh, honey is it coming. ;-)_

_I'm thinking Chapter 11 will wrap this bad boy up…I'll keep you posted. And I'll get it up as soon as I humanly can. I really am trying despite the crazy curveballs of life. I am so grateful for your patience._

_As always, there are no words to express my gratitude. I know I haven't had time yet to respond to every review, but I will. Going to be catching up on last chapter as soon as I get this one up._

_The reviews matter SO much. You keep me writing. You keep me inspired. You are without a question the reason I post these fics. So, please, pretty please….review._

**DAY 34 – Elena's POV**

Everything hurts.

My stomach. My head. My heart.

That one hurts the worst.

Since I've only been gone for four hours, I don't know why I knock at the boarding house. Or why I can't breathe when Damon opens the door.

He looks at me and I wish he wouldn't. Because I'm right back on his dresser again and I can't forget how right it felt. How far I wanted it to go.

And how little the liquor had to do with it.

He tilts his head and I hear the last words he said to me. Before Alaric. Before Stefan and Caroline and the newest tragedy of the hour dragged me kicking and screaming to my senses.

_I'm apeshit crazy about you._

Those words are still in his eyes right now. And I have to stand here and pretend I don't see it.

"Hi," I say softly, knowing he'd let us stare at each other forever if I didn't.

"Hi back."

His voice is like velvet tonight, low and sweet and as soft as his eyes. Looking at him is too much. Too hard. I drop my gaze to my feet and try to remember the danger and Caroline and all the things that _need_ to matter to me.

"Is everyone here?" I ask.

"Every last Nancy Drew in the county," he says, and now he's _all_ Damon. He's got the smirk and the sarcasm, and even that little flicker of darkness in his eyes when he props the door open to let me pass. I slide past him, breathing in his smell and his heat and God, I can't keep doing this. I can't.

I clench my hands into fists and even then they shake. I haven't stopped shaking since he kissed me.

Bonnie and Tyler are arguing when we move into the living room. Everyone else is here, too, of course.

"She would never agree to him taking her!" Tyler snarls.

Bonnie stands up, Jeremy just behind her. "She told me she was okay. That she was getting somewhere!"

"She didn't tell you shit," Tyler says. "You connected to her in a damned spell! How do we know you didn't hocus-pocus whatever you wanted to hear?"

"Because I'd do anything to keep her alive," Bonnie snaps.

"Yeah, maybe even indulge in some blind optimism?"

Damon steps in, jabbing Tyler with his fingers. "Watch it, Cujo. This isn't exactly your time of the month to be a douche."

Then he turns to Bonnie, looking thoughtful. "As much as I hate to admit it, Marmaduke might have a point. Whatever Caroline says has to be pulled back through the peroxide filter."

"The what?" Alaric asks.

Damon rolls his eyes. "The blonde gene that makes Caroline an absolute shit judge of character."

"Damon," I say in warning, but Tyler slides in, chest puffing out.

"You're an unbelievable dick," he says.

"Oh, I'm a couple of miles _past_ dick," Damon says, looking bored. "And Caroline was sure I was the catch of her young life."

"You piece of shit!" Tyler says and Bonnie's rising to her feet, too, her eyes crackling.

"Hey, hey," Alaric says, stepping in the middle with me so we're both playing referee. "Everybody just calm down."

"I'm calm," Damon shrugs. "They're the ones frothing at the mouth."

I can see that Bonnie's just about to unleash something awful. "You think this is funny, Damon?" she says. "You compelled Caroline! You used her like a toy."

"And my brother won't bother," Damon snarls back. "You're expecting _me_ and that's where you're wrong. Stefan doesn't play mind games. He rips his victims limb from fucking limb and uses their organs for arts and crafts time."

He cuts himself off, stopping to turn to me, his eyes ducked and voice soft. "I'm sorry."

Then he turns to back everyone else, crossing his arms. "Look, I don't want to rain all over your Friendly Friendship Fair, but we need to get real. Caroline sees the best in people, and she thinks Stefan is still people. Nobody in this room wants her to die for that."

"Including you?" Bonnie challenges Damon. "You think I believe you care if she lives?"

"If I didn't, I sure the fuck wouldn't have thrown my arm in Tyler's mouth to keep her alive."

I wince. I don't need that reminder right now, the thought of a half-dead Damon stretched out on his bed beside me. Because that moment, when I curled under his arm and fought my tears until my throat hurt, that was the second I knew I wasn't going to be right without him. Maybe not ever again.

"He's right about Caroline," Jeremy says, releasing me from Memory Lane. "She'd want to think Stefan's still a good guy."

"Well, she's not dead yet," Damon says. "That's something."

"But we can't chance it," I say, my voice smaller than I'd hoped.

Bonnie's temper flares in her dark eyes. "We aren't going to _chance_ it. We'll go to them in the forest. Damon will try to reason with Stefan while I work on Klaus. If reasoning fails, I'll put him down."

"Stefan or me?" Damon asks, smirking.

I move in front of him, blocking Bonnie's view before she gets any ideas. "Down? What do you mean by down?"

"Migraine first," she says.

"And if that doesn't work?" I ask.

"Let me guess," Damon says. "You'll flambé us both and pass around the marshmallows and hot cocoa?"

"Stop," I say, putting my hand behind me.

My fingers hit the hard ridges of his abs. I pull them back like they've been burned. But not before I hear him softly hiss. A shiver goes through me, neck to toes. God, I don't have time for this.

"I'll do whatever I need to keep Caroline safe," Bonnie says, jaw set.

"We all will," Alaric say, the voice of solidarity.

"We all want the same thing," he adds, but he's wrong.

I'm pretty sure I'm the only one in the room that wants Damon.

**Day 40 – Damon's POV**

If Elena dies, I will kill him. I'll kill everyone in this forest and then in the town. I won't stop killing until the whole fucking state of Virginia is a shallow grave.

I'm moving at vampire speed, panicked vampire speed at that, but it feels like slow motion.

I pass Bonnie, who's screaming out a litany of abracadabra nonsense. It seems to be working though. I leap over Klaus, who's writhing back and forth, Four of Alaric's arrows protruding from his chest and a long thin scream tearing from his throat. But I don't give a fuck about Klaus.

I want Stefan.

Caroline is coming to when I get to the clearing. Tyler's helping her up and ignoring the small dark body crumpled in my brother's arms. I see his mouth at her neck, hear the slick, gut-twisting sound of his feeding.

She's not moving.

She's not fucking moving.

I leap at him with a roar, knocking Elena free and burying my fangs in my brother's neck. And it's all rage and instinct and pure fucking craziness then.

"I think he's drugged!" Caroline says, but I don't give a shit.

He's dead is what he is. And they're still screaming and I can still hear lightning from Bonnie's spell and Jeremy and Ric's crossbows hissing over and over. None of it means dick to me now.

There is nothing but the tear of Stefan's fangs in my arm and the feel of his skin giving way beneath my fingers. We are literally tearing each other apart. I punch my fingers into his gut, missing the sweet spot, but still getting a horrible groan.

It still fucking hurts to hear him like this. I hate myself for this love, the brother part of me that I can't shake loose. Even now.

We're tumbling through the forest, snapping teeth and hammering fists, until something breaks through the cacophony, catching my ear.

The smallest whimper.

Elena.

I clutch leap free of Stefan's attack and Caroline slides into my place, slamming her hands into Stefan's chest.

"Enough!" she shouts.

Caroline keeps her hands on Stefan, who's so cloud-eyed he looks like he just sucked down a bong. I'm listening, searching the darkness, and Caroline's pushing Stefan back, hauling him in by his collar when he tries to come from me.

"I don't think so, Stefan. You reel this crazy in right now! You told me it could be controlled. _You_ told me that. So harness your inner Ghandi or a Gatorade commercial, or whatever, okay? Just stop."

I spot Jeremy through the trees, crouching and rocking and saying Bonnie's name about a thousand times a second. I hear someone hacking through flesh so I can only assume that Klaus is dead and Alaric is making sure he stays that way.

But I can't look. I can't look at anything but _her_. Tyler's got her in his arms, but he's darting nervous glances at Caroline and I can barely move. Can barely breathe. I trip and don't bother to get up, just crawl through the mud and the spongy, fecund things that thrive on forest floors. I can't hear her heart.

"Elena." Her name feels like sin around my fangs, forbidden and sweet.

I haul myself over a dead log and there she is, in the meathead's arms. I snarl something at Tyler, something that doesn't make a damned bit of sense. I'm not sure it's even English, but it sends him back a few feet nonetheless.

When he's gone, I scoop her up against me. There's so much blood I can barely stand it. It floods my senses and burns my eyes and fuck, is she breathing? _Is she breathing? _

She is.

Heart beating. Lungs working. I run my fingers along the length of her spine. She's okay. She's alive.

Relief rushes through me like a freight train. And little piece of shit baby that I am, I start in with the waterworks. If I had a badge of bad assery, somebody would need to shove it up my ass about now.

"I'm alright," Elena says, and there she is, looking up at me, skin pale, but otherwise she's there. She's Elena. "I'm okay."

I squeeze her so tight that it probably hurts us both. I'm not sure for me because I can't feel a damned thing and I can't ask her, because I can't speak. Can't say a mother fucking thing because I'll start in on diva-worthy sobs if I open my mouth again.

I almost lost her. I was seconds away from losing her. To the brother I've _already_ lost her to, no less.

I'm still so scared my teeth are chattering. And I'm so fucking mad I could choke her to death. Why the hell couldn't she just stay home for once?

I don't even realize I'm rocking her and stroking her hair like a damned Bedlam inmate until she starts making this tender little hushing sound. Her voice feels like sunlight in my ears. Someone really needs to kill me. I'm probably ten seconds from busting into a Whitney Houston song about always loving her.

"I'm sorry," she says, her fingers brushing my jaw as she reads the jumbled mess of my mind. The relief and anger and sheer fucking terror I can't seem to shake.

"I'm okay," she says, when I don't say anything. "I'm going to be okay."

I just shake my head again, scrubbing the tears off my face. I look at her and at my wrist and dammit everything is such a fucking mess between us. I don't even know if I'm allowed to offer this.

She offers me a smile, because she knows me that well. _Too_ damned well. "Caroline took care of that."

Then her face turns grave and her eyes dart around the area before she looks back up at me. I know what she's going to ask. My whole body goes tense because I don't want to hear it. I'm not ready for it. I will _never_ be ready for what she's about to say.

Of course, she says it anyway.

"Where's Stefan?"

I feel my fangs emerge. Terrific. I've regressed to animal behavior. Maybe I can get a pet door installed in my garage and Tyler and I can go chase Frisbees in the park.

Her fingers slide down my neck, her voice whisper soft and meant for me alone. "You love him. We both do. And we both know he'll never forgive himself for this. Not without us."

For a moment, I want to tell her I won't forgive him either. But I don't.

Partially because I don't want to get smacked, but partially because I don't know if it's true. He's my brother. For better or worse clearly doesn't begin to cover it when it comes to the two of us.

And as if on cue, the Elena-only filters on my ears seem to fall away. I hear him now, sobbing in the background. He whispers something. I think it's her name at first, but it's not.

It's mine.

"Damon," he cries, voice strangled.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but I can't shut out that voice. It's like he's four years old and lost in the damned hedge maze. He calls for me again and I cringe, torn between still wanting to kill him and _needing_ to go to him.

It's the only thing I know that's stronger than blood. The only thing other than her.

I turn, keeping Elena out of sight as I meet his eyes a few trees away. His shoulders slump with relief. He's filthy. Bloodied and bruised and looking at me like I've got the keys to heaven and hell in my hand.

"Damon? I can't remember—"

"I think Klaus compelled him," Caroline says softly. "But he's…"

Dead.

Stefan looks at me, absolute horror etched in his eyes. "What did I do, Damon? Did I hurt her?"

He will end himself right now if I ask him to. I see the trust in his eyes, the utter desperation for someone to tell him what to do. God, they don't even make talk shows fucked up enough for us.

"She's alive," I say, but I curl Elena closer, too.

I see his mouth open again, I see him start to say her name, but he can't even bring the sound.

"She's alright," I say and she's struggling in my arms, twisting to try to see.

"Please take me over there," she says.

I hate it. I fucking hate it with everything I've ever been, but it doesn't matter, because I'll give her anything she wants.

I always do.

I lift her in my arms and carry her back across the forest with slow, heavy steps. I see Stefan's face, twisted with a mix of anguish and hope. And Elena's going stiff in my arms, squaring her shoulders and breathing deep.

She could have walked, I know. I know she's giving this to me and I can't even enjoy it because I've dreaded this moment since the second Katherine told me Stefan was gone.

The moment I'd have to give her back.

I ease Elena to the ground and watch her cross with only slightly shaky steps.

Caroline and I exchange a look of absolute agreement. Neither one of us is moving an inch. I don't trust him and apparently my blood _is_ in there somewhere beneath all the lip gloss and pom poms because she doesn't trust him either.

I try not to watch Elena approach him. I try to think about anything else when she lifts her shaking hands to his face. Her thumbs stroke his tears and I close my eyes, forcing myself to not see this since I can't seem to look away.

"It's going to be alright," she says.

Stefan just sits there sobbing like a kid. And I sit there wishing to God I had something to kill.

**Day 45 – Damon's POV**

I have officially run out of witty shit to poke light at my fucked up life. I'm done. I'm beyond done. I'm spending so much time staring at walls that I'm really wondering if I should check into a psych ward. Which trust me, would be would be an improvement over this. I feel like I'm living on the set of Vampire, Interrupted.

Sure, I'd be in a padded room, tended to by burly man-nurses. But on the upside, I wouldn't have to hear the soft murmur of Elena's voice in my brother's bedroom. Or smell her perfume in every hallway. Or see the dresser where I had her moaning and writhing, six _fucking_ days ago.

For the record, Hallmark's got this love shit all wrong. It's not a parade of milkshakes-with-two-straws and you-are-my-sunshine's. It's a fucking ice pick to the throat. Surprising and new, yes. But not really worth the whole anguish and misery side dish it's served with.

I finish my bottle of scotch and stare at the dresser. If I close my eyes, I can still hear her laughing. Can still feel her hands sliding over my chest.

I eye the wooden drawers. I could bust one of those up and finish this. My tombstone would be a hoot. Here lies Damon Salvatore, pussy-whipped to death.

I scowl at myself in the mirror and chuck my empty bottle, grabbing my jacket and keys from the bed. I'll leave the wallowing to Stefan. He can pull his walrus face and blubber all over Elena's shoulder. I need some damned air.

I slide down the stairs and out the door and just about the time I feel like I can breathe, I spot her.

This is my fucking kharma payback, right here. Girl that holds my fucking soul in the palm of her hand and I can't have her. But I get to look at her a whole, whole lot. Just in case I forget what I can't have.

"Hey," Elena says, wiping her eyes as if that's going to convince either one of us that she wasn't out here crying.

I hate her so much it hurts. Or, wait, maybe that's love. Both of them feel about as good as being skinned alive so what's the difference? She sighs and I can smell her in the air, summer nights and girly sweetness. God, it's so good I can practically taste her again.

I can't even bother to care that she was probably curled up on my brother's chest ten _minutes_ ago. If she asked me right now, I'd net the moon and drag it out of the sky.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

She sniffs, but smiles. "Nothing. Just wanted to get a little air."

"Sure, you did. At two o'clock in the morning." I walk forward and she takes a breath. Holds it in and watches me with those big dark eyes. "What's _really_ wrong, Elena?"

"Nothing," she repeats. No smile this time. "Everything."

"Well that clears it up," I say, and I want to turn my back on her.

Want to but I don't, because she's the Toto to my fucking Dorothy and I'm lost without her.

"Want to go for a ride?" I offer.

She meet my eyes and I see it, clear as day. She wants to. Bad. Simmering just beneath all this Mother Teresa bullshit is a girl who wants to run. Maybe a girl who wants to run with me.

_Don't you dare try to talk her into it like some little sniveling little pussy._

I hear myself say, "We could be back in an hour."

I should have gone with the dresser idea. Dead beats desperate every damned day of the week.

I hate myself a little less when she thinks about it, her eyes flicking to the boarding house and then back to me. And then to the motorcycle behind me.

I speed close to her in a blur, palm on the side of her face. And fuck if she doesn't sigh into me, her eyes drifting close and that bottom lip that tastes like heaven sliding between her teeth.

"One hour," I say, a pathetic little edge to my voice. "He'll never know."

I feel her resolve return, like steel to her bones. "I'll know."

I drop my hand and take a step back. "Well, it's your choice, Elena. As usual."

Her eyes narrows, anger flashing over her features. "My choice?"

"You think _I'm_ calling the shots?"

She crosses her arms, wearing her bitchy like an extra sweater. "So you automatically think that means I am?"

"Who the hell do you think is in charge here? You've got us both so tangled up we'd rip out our fangs for you!"

She flips her hair in that pissy little way of hers, her face tight with rage. "I never _asked_ you to care about me, Damon."

"No, you didn't," I say, "but you haven't done much fucking complaining about it lately, have you?"

I try to turn away then, but then her fist slams into my arm. I turn back and she tears into me, useless little jabs and shoves punctuated with the biggest baddest words she probably knows. It takes unbelievable strength not to laugh at her.

"You have no idea what this is like for me!" she cries.

"Right. I'm sure it's killing you to have two men who'd drink your damned bath water. Hey, maybe you could bat your eyes at Tyler and Alaric and make it a quartet."

Another little butterfly punch, this one to my chest. "I hate you! I hate you and I hate this and I hate what it means to be who I am—

She trails off in a sob and I wince. The girl's tears are still my kryptonite. Why am I always the dick that causes her to cry? Every damned time.

"Elena," I say, reaching for her, but she jerks back, just out of my reach and bristling with tears and anger.

"I hate it," she says more softly.

But I've had enough of this game, her little back and forth tug-of-war shit. "Then change it!"

She snorts then. "Change it how, Damon? Change it by jumping on the back of your motorcycle and running away from all of this? From Stefan, from Caroline, from _my brother_?"

"Hell, yes!" I say, and then cock my head and amend that. "Okay, we can come back for Jeremy, but the rest of it—yes. A thousand times yes."

She shakes her head, eyes wet. "You don't get it. You don't get that I can't do that."

"I get that you _choose_ not to," I snap, and then I turn on my heel and stride to my bike. She calls after me.

"You think I'm just scared, but you're wrong! You don't know what I feel."

"Really?" I ask, turning back to her. She storms up to me, moonlight transforming her into an angel beneath its pale light.

"Enlighten me," I say when she doesn't speak. "Tell me, Elena."

"Tell you what, Damon? Tell you I feel things for you? Things that scare me? Things I don't even have words for? Is that what you want to hear?"

I feel my mouth fall open, my eyes growing wide. She has to be joking, pulling some sort of—no, she's not kidding. She's fucking serious. Am I supposed to answer her? She says this and I'm supposed to, what? Form coherent words? I can't even blink.

"I feel things for you, Damon," she says, spitting out the words like it's all my fault. "Are you happy now?"

As a matter of fact, yes. There is exactly one crystalline second where my life is everything I've ever wanted. I can see it in her eyes. She means it. She fucking means it.

A stronger man would play it cool. I practically trip over my own feet closing the distance between us. And then I pick her up and bury my face into her throat so she doesn't see the ridiculous raptured expression I'm sure I'm wearing. And God, I want to crawl inside her, slip beneath her skin until the beat of her heart is imprinted on my mother fucking bones.

I feel her hands trembling in my hair, but something's wrong. She's not melting into me like she's supposed to. She's taking sniffy little breaths that I know aren't good.

"Damon," she says, and I can smell her tears. "It can't happen. It can't _ever_ happen."

I look up, so damned stupid that for a second I don't get it. Her tears slide down her cheeks, dripping onto mine.

"He'll die if we leave him. You know it, Damon. We both know it. It will kill him. And then we will hate each other. _Blame_ each other," she shakes her head, face crumpling.

She slides free of my arms and the rush of air between us feels colder than ice.

"I'm eighteen years old," she cries. "I should be crazy and college-bound and pursuing every big feeling I have. And I can't. I can't even stop long enough to think about any of those things because everywhere I look, someone needs me. Someone is depending on _me_ to hold it together. I'm trapped in that. We both are."

"Speak for yourself," I say, and I realize they're the first words I've spoken. My voice is flat. Dead, even for me.

She just shakes her head, still crying. "I know what it's like to be left. I know what it's like to have people just vanish. I can't do that to Jeremy, Damon. Or to Stefan. I can't because I _know_ what it's like to be left behind."

I hear the grief in her voice, the soft, haunting reminder of the ones who slipped away. Her parents. Jenna. Even John.

"What do you want from me, Elena? You want some little Stefan substitute or fucking Edward Cullen, but I can't. I can't be what you want me to be."

She rushes to me then, pressing her fingers to my lips. "You are the only person left who makes me want anything for myself. You are everything I want you to be. And it's killing me."

She presses a single kiss to the hollow of my throat. And then she's gone.

-TBC-


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10:

DISCLAIMER: Still don't own it. Still glad that the people that do are bringing it back.

**A/N: Well, the bad and crazy got even worse, so this is a little later than I thought, and I really, really hope you'll all forgive me for that. I don't want to bore you with the details, but my dad ended up with open heart surgery and it's just been an ugly, ugly couple of weeks.**

**I truly hope you will forgive me for not replying personally yet to your reviews. I read them more than once during this ordeal. Your kindness and compliments mean more than I can possibly say. They always do. And I will reply. I really will. But I had so little time that I figured between writing and replying, you guys might prefer me to write.**

**I hope.**

**At any rate, we are really nearing the end. And I love this chapter. I don't know why – it might not be all that great – it's definitely not side-splitting funny (Elena's downright depressing!) but I think I'm okay with it. Let me know if you are.**

**In fact, if you are reading and enjoying, I would absolutely love you to click that review button this time. In this really yucky terrible time, hearing that someone is enjoying or happy I posted is a spot of sunshine I desperately need. And to all of you regular reviewers (you know who you are) please know I hang on your every word the way I hope you hang on mine! You are AMAZING. *hugs***

***DAY 48 – ELENA'S POV***

The first thing I see is palm trees. They stretch out over my head, dark green leaves framed by a plum-colored sky. Night is falling, darkness drifting in behind the fiery streaks of red and orange. I smell flowers and fruit, lush tropical things that belong to places too far away to be real. The sweet breeze lifts my hair, and though I'm lying down, I'm swaying in something.

No, not _something_. A hammock.

I can hear the soft stretch and squeak of the ropes with every rock. And since I feel the press of a hard thigh against mine, I know I'm not alone.

I roll onto my side, towards the body next to me. I'm not surprised when it's Damon who turns his head to look at me. A smile lights his face, his eyes more beautiful than the sky.

"About time," he says, arm curling around my waist though I hadn't felt it beneath me before. His hand glides down my hip and over my bare thigh. "All your log-sawing was destroying my ambiance."

"I don't snore," I laugh, pushing his chest. He's wearing swim trunks. Or maybe boxers. I'm too transfixed by the heat of his skin under my fingers to check.

"Do too," he says, his smile small and smug. "And you drool. Plus sometimes when you're really knocked out, you start talking."

He affects a fake falsetto that I'm pretty sure is supposed to be me. "Oh, _Damon_. Right there, _Damon_. You're a sex god, _Damon_."

I bat his chest again and then bite at his neck, dragging my knee up over his stomach. "You take that back."

He groans throatily, fingers dipping into my bikini bottoms until he's tracing the curve of my ass. "I'll take back anything you want if you promise not to move."

I slide my hand into the front of his shorts and he hisses. "You keep _that_ up and I'll take back shit I didn't even say."

I laugh and he pulls me on top of him, fingers skimming my sides as the hammock rocks precariously beneath us.

"Don't you dare let me fall," I say, as he peels my bikini top away, adoration lighting his features.

"Never."

*#*#*

We're on a beach now, but it's not the same. Not tropical. I catch a familiar mix of salt and boardwalks and old bonfires. The sand is coarser and darker. Virginia sand. Gulls cry overhead and a pair of sandpipers dart in and out of the surf.

He is behind me, knees pulled up on either side of my body, his arms locked around my middle. I finger the rolled up cuffs of his white shirt, then slide my hands over his as I stare out to the Atlantic.

"I could sit here forever," I sigh.

"No, _I_ could sit here forever. You'd have to eat and pee and do all kinds of gross human things."

I tip my head back against his chest, scoffing. "Yeah, well if you sat here forever, you'd shrivel up into a vampire raisin."

"Lucky for me I packed lunch," he says, and then he nips at my jaw with blunt teeth.

Chuckling, I turn around and Damon leans back, propping himself up on his elbows in the sand. He is impossibly beautiful here. The blue of the sky and the bleached reeds of the sea oats behind him play wicked magic with his coloring.

I climb over him, straddling his waist, and watch him stare up at me, his body hard with arousal, but his eyes alight with humor.

"What if I don't want to be lunch?" I ask.

This isn't about him drinking from me. He's bitten me. I can feel the invisible burn of hundreds of bites, and though I can't remember them now, each one makes a dark hunger pulse between my thighs.

But this isn't about that kind of biting. It's bigger than that.

"Maybe I'm ready to be here forever too," I hear myself say.

He sighs theatrically, as if I'm suggesting a movie he'd rather skip. "I don't know. We'll have to start eating the locals. And if you bite one of those bait boys who smell like a clam's ass, you're going to stink up the whole bed."

"I'm serious," I say.

His expression flickers, but he holds onto the smirk he wears best. "Maybe. But one of these days, though, you're going to come to your senses. Find some guy named Jake, get a house, maybe a dog."

"It's not going to happen, Damon," I say, palming his face, but behind his smile, I see the fear in his eyes.

*#*#*

The sea is near but I am inside a house. A cottage, maybe. I hear it though, a soft low roll of waves curling in one after the next. And I am curling too, my arms and legs in this sinfully wide bed with lush white sheets and—

"Damon," I cry, feeling him move inside me, his mouth on my breast and hand pressed to the small of my back. I pull him up to kiss him long and deep. Every thrust of his body in mine tosses me like the tide. I feel only pleasure.

Only him.

His shoulders shudder beneath my hands, my soft sighs swallowed in the heat of his low groans. We are skin to skin, soul to soul, and this joining is like nothing I've ever known.

His hands find mine, fingers interlacing until I can feel the press of his ring against my skin.

"I love you," I breathe into his ear.

"You'll never wear that out," he says, smiling down at me.

"I'll try forever if you'll let me," I say, and his body goes still. Our limbs stay entwined as a wordless question appears in his eyes.

"It's time," I tell him. His mouth opens to protest, but I press my fingers to his lips and shake my head. "No more arguments, Damon."

Outside the sea is softly roaring. The breeze brings its briny smell into the room. Its color has been here all along, tucked into the fathomless blue of my lover's eyes.

"Are you sure?" he asks, feathering a hand over my face.

I only smile in answer. And then his face changes, eyes going dark and fangs going long. And I kiss him, just like he is, because I am sure. I'm ready.

*#*#*

I wake up, heart pounding and breath coming in hard, shuddery bursts. I press my hands to my cheeks, and they are hot to the touch, stained scarlet, no doubt.

_A dream. Just a dream. _

It didn't feel like a dream though. I can still smell him on my fingers. My ears still hold the echo of the waves and the memory of his groans.

I close my eyes and tears slide down my face, dropping onto Stefan's sheets. But Damon's name is still poised on my tongue.

I can't keep doing this.

I have to come back from this place. I have to, and I can't. I'm upside down and inside out and though I've picked and prodded until I ached with the effort, I can't find the part of my heart that believes Stefan and I are forever and always. I find obligation instead, its hand heavy on my shoulders as I sit in this bed and watch Stefan sleep.

He moans softly reaching blindly across the sheets. I stretch out my arm, taking his hand automatically, watching him sigh in content.

I command my body to be still, my heart to stay steady. But a desperate, panicked feeling scrabbles at my throat. My eyes dart to the window and then the door. My feet itch for the cool wet grass in the yard. I can feel myself running. Running hard and fast until this is all left behind me.

But I don't run, of course. I just sit here, holding Stefan's hand and thinking of Damon's eyes. And I cry until I think my soul with snap in two.

Sometimes I wonder if it already has.

***Damon POV – Day 50***

I suppose I should move to get off the floor when Alaric gives up on knocking and barges into my room. I should at least put on some pants. But I don't.

And he just stands there in the middle of my bedroom, looking down at me spread-eagle in my boxers in a scattering of empty liquor bottles.

"Looks like a real classy night, Tommy Lee," he says. "Did you make a sex video too?"

"I took a vow of celibacy," I deadpan.

"Cute," Ric says. "You planning on getting up any time this decade?"

I lie there, groping for a bottle that's not drained, but I come up empty. "Why? You need me to zip your dress?"

I hear another set of feet. Female, but smaller and prissier than Elena's. A face surrounded by blonde waves and filled with a look of abject horror appears next to Alaric's frown.

"Ew!" Caroline says, by way of greeting.

"Ric, why is Hannah Montana in my room?"

"He's not even dressed," Caroline complains, stepping back as if I'm actually oozing. Hell, I might be.

Even still, I scoff. "You do remember saying that it should be a criminal offense for me to wear a shirt."

"I was compelled!" she argues.

My brow arches at that. "Not 'til later you weren't."

"Yeah, well, I was obviously insane because there isn't enough hot in the world to counteract your level of icky."

"She wants me," I say to Ric.

They both roll their eyes and drag me to my feet.

"Ugh," Caroline says, and she's in my closet now, pulling something out. "He smells like the bottom of a bar stool. Get him in the shower."

"Kinky," I smirk. "But Ric's not my type."

"No, your type is young, sweet, and practically married to your brother," Caroline says, throwing clothes at me. "Now go get showered and meet us in the hall."

"Are you serious? Is this supposed to be an intervention?" I glance at Ric. "Tell me you're not that stupid."

"Actually, this was my idea," Caroline says. "I need to ask you about something."

"They make these new fandangled contraptions these days. Phones. You may have heard of them?"

"You've missed twenty-six calls in the last twenty-four hours."

"I've been busy," I shrug. "Wait, how do you know that?"

Ric looks at me. "Because I found your phone in a bush by your front door."

I open my mouth to fire back something pretty lame about the only bush Ric's been in for awhile, but then, somewhere in the house, Elena speaks. I can't make out the words, but her voice is like a bullet to my gut. I feel myself flinch. And I see Caroline's eyes narrow.

She was a hell of a lot easier to ignore when she didn't have my blood chugging through her veins.

"Give me an hour," I tell them.

"Meet us at the bar on 3rd," Ric says.

Caroline rolls her eyes skyward again and I fervently wish for them to stick. They don't. "Hello! It's eleven o'clock in the morning. We'll do the donut shop. Damon can drink lots and lots of _coffee_."

I snort at that. "I'm not going to a _donut_ shop."

She brightens noticeably, her smile set to a thousand watts of giddy spite. "Okay, we'll just meet downstairs. Maybe Stefan—"

I clench my jaw until I feel a muscle jump. "Fine. I'll be there."

Alaric looks vaguely disgusted with me for giving in. "Maybe I'll order you a cream puff."

"Maybe I'll pull out your liver and have them fry it up with some onions."

Caroline grabs Alaric's arm and heads for the door. "Don't encourage him to be gross. He's gross enough all by himself."

I shower, hoping the water will somehow baptize me unholy again. It doesn't. I'm left mildly pissy with a side of sulk. I check my eyebrows in the mirror, just to make sure I don't have any Stefan action going on up there.

And then I head out of the house, blurring down the stairs and trying to convince myself I'm not doing it to make sure I don't bump into Elena. On my way to a fucking donut shup because _Caroline _told me she needed to talk to me. What the fuck is _that_ about? What kind of pansy am I becoming?

Hell, if I don't kill somebody soon, I'm going to wind up in some group therapy session sobbing about my inner child.

To my disappointment, I don't try to bite a single person on my way to the donut shop, which is actually called Do-Do's Donuts. I swear there's a cartoon sketch of the prehistoric bird eating a fucking apple fritter on the sign.

If I had a single ounce of self respect left, I'd yank that sign out of the ground and impale the next customer on sheer principle. But clearly I don't, because I walk inside, smelling coffee and waffles and hearing, God help me, Garth Brooks warbling on over the shitty speakers.

This better be important. Somebody better be dead. No, they'd better need _me _to _make_ somebody dead. Preferably lots of somebodies because I can literally feel my dignity seeping out through the soles of my shoes and into the mat beneath me that reads 'Welcome Y'all!'

I find them at a booth and shoot them the most lethal death glare I can manage as I slide in beside Ric.

"After twenty bottles of scotch, you're still grouchy? God, how miserable are you when you're sober?" Caroline asks.

"If there's a point to this, _find_ it," I say.

She finishes her donut and wipes her powdered sugar fingers on her napkins. "Okay, so I need to know something, because if it's true it could send this whole delicate balance we've got going right over the edge. And I don't think it could be true, because it would be too…too…"

"Caroline," Ric interrupts, pinching the bridge of his nose impatiently.

"I'm sorry! It's not exactly comfortable to ask him something like—

I lean forward, batting my eyes and speaking in slow, dulcet tones. "It's true, Caroline. I'm deeply, _desperately_ in love with you. I spend my nights walking in the moonlight, sometimes writing haiku—

Her face scrunches in horror. "God, people should be vaccinated before speaking with you!"

I turn to Alaric calmly. "Might want to cover your coffee. I'm going to rip her heart out now."

"Are you sleeping with Elena?"

I turn back to Caroline as if pulled by a string, feeling my eyes go comically wide. "Excuse me?"

Beside me, Ric blows out a sigh. "Remember the whole _subtle_ talk we had, Caroline?"

"Yeah, I decided to ignore all that," she says, waving him off like a pesky fly. And then to me, "So, are you?"

I narrow my eyes at her, waiting for her to elaborate. And since this is Caroline, who has the attention span of a Chihuahua on speed, I don't have to wait long.

"I smelled you on her," she says, having the decency to look a little embarrassed. "The first time Stefan came home. That night when you called everyone over, and Elena had gotten there before the rest of us."

_And kissed the living hell out of me by my front door before she found out Stefan was home._

I force a bored expression. "So? She was in my house."

"Yeah, so was Alaric, but he didn't smell like he'd been playing naked Twister with you," she says, not missing a beat, "Plus she stayed in your room after Stefan took off with you. And I'm pretty sure I caught her wearing one of your shirts during all that, too."

The idea of Elena in my shirt again makes me warm and gooey in the middle. I need to knock this shit off before I turn into a candy bar. Or grow a fucking uterus.

"I'd love to know how any of this is your damned business," I say.

Caroline cocks her head, her hands popping to her hips. But Alaric holds her off with a look.

"It's not our business," he says, and then looks hard at Caroline. "Regardless of how we feel about it. But, if you're hiding something from us…"

"Then you're hiding it from Stefan too," Caroline says, sighing like she just can't believe I don't get it. "It's like you _want_ to put us all in danger, Damon."

I start at that. "Seriously? Stefan just reenacted Friday the 13th _and_ the eighteen thousand sequels that followed it, but _I'm_ the problem? I get that you people _love_ to cast me as the bad guy, but this is a bit of a fucking stretch."

I slam my way out of the restaurant, into the brightness of a Virginia afternoon. Ric and Caroline are hot on my heels, Caroline holding up placating hands.

"That's not it," Caroline says. "I just—I meant—

"We're worried about how Stefan would react," Ric tries.

I snap back like a fuse has been lit. "Well, of course we are! It's all about Stefan these days, right? I'm surprised we haven't shut down the local businesses and set up an altar where we can burn offerings to our Patron Saint of 'Poor Me'."

"Oh, God," Caroline says, looking green around the gills. "You're not denying it. It's true. You guys are—I can't even say it. It's too—

I've got her off the ground by the throat before she gets it out. "I am not sleeping with Elena. And if you make one more fucking comment about it, I swear I'm going to rip off your lips and beat you to death with them."

I drop her half a second later, my sudden burst of rage waning. "Elena made her choice and trust me, she's sticking to it."

"I'll take you at your word," Ric says. "But you can't be that surprised we're asking. You and Elena are obviously…closer."

Interesting word choice, especially for the guy who personally witnessed Elena stumbling out of my room with swollen lips the night Caroline went missing.

"Yeah, well, evidence to the contrary, there's nothing between us."

Caroline snorts in disbelief. "Hello? There's always been _something_ between the two of you. Hell, you two were having eye sex back when you and I were…well, whatever sick, deviant thing you and I were."

Ric run a hand through his hair. "The point is, if _we_ pieced this together, it's only a matter of time before Stefan does,"

"And when he does, he'll turn totally crazy and—

"I'll get crucified for it," I scoff, but before they can argue, I put up my hand. "And you know what, I'm about done getting nailed to the cross, so fuck them."

It feels good coming out. I feel riled up. Hell, almost turned on. I shake out my shoulders and give my best sneer.

"I don't give a shit about their epic love or their bittersweet destiny or the big fucking white horse they'll undoubtedly ride into the sunset on. You think I'm causing the problem, then I've got a _real_ easy solution."

And suddenly it _is_ easy. I can leave. I feel the snap and the break and a million fucking pounds is flying off of my shoulders. I can leave her.

I can leave all of this bullshit.

Caroline looks uncertain, but Ric's got me pegged. I can see the pain in his eyes from here.

"She'll be in danger," he says.

"Well then it's a good thing for her that my brother's such a fucking hero."

***DAY 52 ELENA'S POV***

I don't even know what movie's playing. Stefan's beside me on the couch and there's a bowl of popcorn on the table, but since neither of us has touched it, it feels like a prop. I look down at the eight inches of couch between us, where our hands are linked.

I feel a thousand miles away from my hand, from this house, from this man that used to make my world orbit the Sun.

We're at least an hour in when he speaks, proving neither one of us is watching. "There's something we need to talk about."

There are _hundreds_ of things we need to talk about. And I don't want to talk about any of them. I don't want to talk at all.

I turn towards him on the couch, unable to make myself smile.

"It's about Damon."

I feel shriveled and prickly, like a cactus gone too long without rain. But I force myself to nod, to keep my face from betraying me.

"He, uh….he left."

I don't even blink. I just sit there, expectant, because Stefan hasn't finished his sentence. He hasn't clarified that Damon left for the bar or the blood bank or whatever other place Damon would go.

"I don't think he's coming back, Elena."

He lets that sentence sit until I'm sure this time there's nothing left to be added. There's no addendum or condition. This is what it is. Damon is gone.

A laugh comes out of me, short and sharp like a burst of bullets from a machine-gun.

A joke. It has to be. It can't be anything else. Damon wouldn't leave. He's confessed to me he doesn't even know how.

"This is who Damon is," he says. "He's done this before, Elena. He moves on."

Not anymore.

The words are on my lips, begging to be released, but I press my mouth closed until I won't say that.

"He…he didn't say goodbye," I finally manage, and I sound okay. I don't sound like someone who's going to burst into gut-wrenching sobs or hurl heavy crystal things at the walls.

But I do want to. I want to do both.

Stefan nods, watching me very closely. I am careful to fold my hands in my lap, to school my expression to absolute indifference.

Inside I am screaming until my throat is raw, but here where it matters, I am quiet.

He stares and stares until I can feel the weight of his gaze in my chest, weighing me down. And I stare back, my jaw tightening, my fingers curling into hard, white fists.

Then he looks at me, his expression grim.

"I love my brother," he says, and then he drops his gaze to the carpet, shoulders slouching in misery. "He brought me back to you. He came through for me. Because of you, he's a better man than I ever thought he'd be again. And still….still, I'm glad he's gone."

"Because he's in love with me."

The words come out before I can stop them. I'm surprised at the spite behind them.

Stefan winces, but nods. "I can't stand the way he looks at you. The way it makes you hold your breath and turn away. Sometimes I swear _his gaze_ moves you more than _my touch_."

Now it's too much. I look away, my gaze burning into the fireplace, watching the flames dance against one another.

But I still squeeze Stefan's hand, my grip going hard over his fingers. Maybe if I cling tight enough, it will remind me what I have to do.

Because all I can think of is tearing out of this room like a bat on fire, searching the streets with Damon's number on speed dial and my eyes searching every dark corner.

"You're worried about him," he says, and I realize his fingers are limp in mine.

I force myself to loosen my grip. To shrug as if this is still not tragic. "Of course, I'm worried, Stefan. He's my friend. It's nothing personal."

"Everything between the two of you is _personal_," he says, a mix of spite and resignation in his eyes.

I open my mouth because I want to argue. But, in the end, I don't want to fight anymore. All the fight's gone out of me, maybe walked out of here on Damon's heels.

"I always make the right choices. The dependable choices. I always choose the safe path and I'm always, always here when people need me."

Stefan smiles, misunderstanding. "I know that. You've been a rock to me. You brought me back from all of this."

I stand up, breathing hard and feeling the edge of something terrifying just beneath my feet. I don't know what lies beyond this place. I could lose everything if I leap.

I _will_ lose Stefan.

But, then, I lost Stefan fifty-one days ago, didn't I?

"I'm sorry," I say, shaking my head and watching the shock register on his face. "I can't be your rock. I can't live my whole life trying to make sure you don't fall apart again. I love you, Stefan. I always have. But it's different."

"You need time," he offers, a thin thread of hope dangling in his expression.

"No," I say, snipping it in two. "I need to focus on what _I_ need for once."

"And you need Damon," he guesses.

I don't answer him. And I guess that's all the answer either one of us needs.

***DAY 52 – DAMON'S POINT OF VIEW***

Thirty-four mother fucking calls.

Thirty-four! At first I ignored them. New York makes ignoring things easy. So, I checked out Times Square and Chinatown and then grabbed a quick bite at a Red Cross Bloodmobile Buffet.

And my phone kept on buzzing.

Over and over again.

Now, I'm back in my hotel room, pacing patterns into the carpet and biting my fucking nails as I mentally flip through the reasons she'd be calling me for two straight hours and then suddenly, stop. It's been a good thirty minutes since her last call. Why? Why the hell is she calling at all?

Most likely: some whiney, guilt-inducing sob story about her valuing our friendship. Yeah, and she can fucking bite my ass if she thinks I'm going to fall for that shit again.

Except that I would. And I know it and she knows it and that's why I can't answer.

I put the phone down on the table. Step away from it like it's a damned bomb and command myself to ride the elevator down to the street where I find some young, tanned thing with a Midwestern smile and veins full of O Positive.

But she could be hurt.

Kidnapped. Under a spell. Pinned beneath a heavy piece of furniture with her cell phone only able to dial one number.

I stare at the black rectangle sitting in the center of the hotel table and rememeber that I hate myself. No. Hate is nowhere near fucking big enough for how I feel about myself right now.

It buzzes again. Not a call, a text message. I can handle that. She can't sniffle in a text message or let her voice crack in that way that slices me in two. It's pixels on a plastic screen. Harmless.

I open it up and that familiar, annoying squeeze goes around my chest. I'm imagining her fingers on her keypad, her hair sliding down around her face as she leans to type it out the five words she's probably hemmed and hawed over for an hour.

_Answer me one question. Please._

I close my eyes, hating her more than maybe I ever have. Loving her more, too. She doesn't wait for me to agree, just texts me again, machine-gun style.

_If you could take me anywhere, and I mean *me*, not just anyone, where would you take me?_

***DAY 52 – ELENA'S POINT OF VIEW***

Seventy-two minutes.

That's how long I've waited for Damon to respond. First, I stared at my phone while I cried. Then I stopped crying and started cleaning up my already clean room. Then I reminded myself that this whole thing is ridiculous and stupid and the furthest thing in the world from _what I need_.

And I brushed my hair and put on my pajamas and swore to God that I would sleep this off and wake up a whole new person.

But when my phone chimes, I don't give a damn about that new, better me.

He responded. I don't think anything else matters. Not anything.

I open the message, already crying before I read the words. And then I do read the words and they have power that no text message should have. I feel some long locked part of me crack and open wide.

And I have to read it again. Just to be sure. But the words are the same.

_Everywhere. I'd take you everywhere, Elena, and I'd start with beaches._


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 10:

DISCLAIMER: Still don't own it. Still glad that the people that do are bringing it back.

_**A/N: Well, guys, two left. This one and then a short wrap-up chapter. It took me a long time to feel satisfied with this. I rewrote it at least three times, ergo the long wait. The other part is mostly written and I promise to have it up before our new season starts. I felt really compelled to deal with some of Elena's baggage and non-Damon relationships in this chapter. I'm sorry as I know we're all in this for D/E, but I can't see Elena without some serious worries about her friends and family. Ergo, the Elena bit in this chapter. I really hope it doesn't bug you. *worries***_

_**I tried to reply to some of your reviews, but I know I've still missed a bunch. I will be getting to all of you because your kind comments and your boundless enthusiasm really dragged me through one of the hardest weeks I've known in years. Please, please take a moment to review. It is without fail the reviews that keep me posting. I have less than no time to be working on this fic anymore, and there is absolutely no question that your reviews inspire me to keep at it. (Plus, I'm toying with yet another story idea) At any rate, I live for your words, I really do. So, review. Pretty, pretty please.**_

***DAY 52 – DAMON'S POINT OF VIEW***

_Please come home._

Three words, fourteen letters and my inner sixteen year old is doing backflips of joy. Or he is until the hundred and sixty year old prick in me remembers that Elena has served up some version of this shit for months now. This is her blue plate special. Her soup du jour every fucking day of the week, and it doesn't mean what I want it to mean.

It's never going to mean _that_.

She doesn't want me home because she _wants_ me. She wants me _just in case_. Just in case I start flirting with my dark side. Just in case she needs a fridge moved or a load of laundry done. Just in case something unsavory needs handled, and she doesn't want her Saint Stefan Reboot to get his hands dirty.

If Elena harbored some sort of fluttery greeting card _feelings_ for me, she'd text me some girly, rambling string of sentimental bullshit. '_You mean so much to me. I need you here with me.'_ Shit like that. Shit she's probably saying to Stefan, _right now_, two seconds after texting this little mindfuck message to me.

I picture it, them gazing at each other, all Precious Moments eyes and fingers trailing down cheeks.

My grip tightens on the phone and then I hurl it at the wall, swearing a blue streak that sounds something like before it disintegrates into a long, low growl. And then I stare blankly at all the little broken electrical bits strewn across the hotel room floor.

If I wasn't so sure Hell would involve Katherine and my father giving PowerPoint presentations on my many inadequacies, I'm pretty sure this would be it.

_Please come home. _

I scowl at the shattered pieces of phone, as if the shrapnel is at fault for my mental replay of her message.

_Please come home._

Yeah, Damon. Go right ahead. Rush on back down to Mystic Falls so you can be the vampire in waiting. The pitcher on stand-by, always warming up and looking slick in his uniform, but never actually playing the damned game.

Fuck that.

That is exactly why I left that little two-diner bullshit excuse for a town. And I didn't drive all the way to New York City so I could sit around a hotel room sobbing like an extra on the set of Steel fucking Magnolias. I came here to get on with my life.

I'm prowling Times Square in five minutes, watching a sea of people strolling the endless gray ribbons of Manhattan's sidewalks. A thousand smells and languages call to my senses, reminding me that the world is a hell of a lot bigger than one little Virginian princess.

As if on cue, a taxi slides to a stop and a leggy twenty-something slips out. I cock my head to look and there's plenty to admire. She's five foot and a couple of inches of milky-skinned perfection. Tack on the vixen smile spreading on her cock-sucker-red lips and I should forget all about the brunette who prefers sneakers to stilettos.

I really should.

She moves towards me with the ease of a woman who knows how to get what she wants. And right now, I'm sitting directly in her crosshairs.

Half a martini later she's practically climbing into my lap, all fluttering eyes and loaded one-liners. And instead of getting her out of the red lace panties she's flashed me every time she crosses her legs, I'm busy trying to figure out why the fuck I'm not all over this.

I mean I'm sitting here like…fucking hell, I'm sitting here like _Stefan_. I mean, look at me! Rocking the long face and downcast eyes. Barely looking at the girl who's all but dry humping my knee. Hell, I've met neutered cats with bigger balls than mine.

"You look tense," she says, eyes flicking to my crotch for the eleventh time this minute.

Yeah, she's chomping at the bit to _fix_ me. And what the fuck am I waiting for? I could have her half-drained and wrapped around me like a pretzel in ninety seconds flat. Isn't that why I'm here? Isn't that why I offered to buy her a drink?

I really am too fucking stupid to live.

Nympho Nancy, or whatever her name is, is still waiting on my answer. So I smirk before I deliver it. "Tense doesn't begin to cover it."

"Let me guess. There's another girl and it's _complicated_?" she asks, because apparently I'm that fucking transparent. Even to complete strangers. Her smile doesn't hold an ounce of jealousy, though.

"You don't know the half of it," I scoff.

She slides her hand up my thigh and tips her head so I can see her pulse beneath her pale skin. It'd be so fucking easy. One bite and half a dozen pulls on that neck and my world goes back to normal.

"Well I'm not complicated." She pauses to flick her tongue across her bottom lip.

I could kill this girl. Fuck her and bleed her out in some nameless dark alley. Do it enough times and maybe it'll get easy again. Maybe I'll stop feeling Elena's eyes on my back and hearing her voice in my ear.

"This girl of yours," she continues, tsk'ing her disapproval and crossing her legs until I can see about two miles of thigh. "She's not with you tonight?"

"Yeah, that's the whole damned problem," I say with a bitter laugh. And then I stand up, brushing her hands away. "She's _always_ with me."

I leave a couple of twenties on the bar and head out, because apparently four hundred miles isn't far enough. Hell, I could be in fucking orbit over Mars, and somehow she'd still be there. Reeling me closer. Pulling me back.

***DAY 55 – ELENA'S POINT OF VIEW***

Water rushes down the kitchen drain and I watch it. I stare as the stream hisses and swirls away.

"Hey, Tree Killer?" Caroline says, pushing the lever off with a laugh. "Want to leave some water for the rest of the planet?"

"Sorry. I drifted off," I say, pressing on my bright smile like fake nails. I smile _all_ the time anymore. I'm not happy, mind you. But I smile.

"Mm-hmm," she says, and I can tell she wants to ask more, but she doesn't.

And I don't say more because there's nothing to say. Stefan and I are over. Damon is gone. And I feel like one of those decorative egg shells, all shiny and pretty but without all the stuff on the inside, the stuff that makes me real.

"Elena, you know—

"I know lots of things, Caroline," I interrupt her, drying my hands and flashing her another plastic grin. "Like I know you're only in the kitchen talking to me so you won't jump Tyler in the middle of my living room."

Caroline's the only vampire I know who can blush, but she does. And it's sort of beautiful, her pale cheeks going pink while her eyes sparkle. But she knows me better than I thought because she's still wearing a look of resolve.

"Elena, you don't have to—

"You're up, Caroline," Jeremy says from the other room.

"I'm not done with you," Caroline says, wagging a perfectly manicured finger at me. "I'm not going to pretend you're fine."

"I am fine."

Stefan's fine. And I'm fine. And the whole damned world is fine and I can't do this. I can't do this for one more second. I feel like I'm going to explode. Like I'm going to burst right out of my skin.

I am alone in the kitchen now, Ric and Jeremy and Tyler and Caroline all clustered around a video game. They are all chattering together, television explosions and playful early relationship banter, and it's perfect and happy and it's all too much.

I ease the back door wide and slip into the brightness of the afternoon. I ignore the dishes on the counter and the unopened bills on the table. I ignore it all and I run.

The heat is thick and heavy, but I run anyway, pounding down sidewalk after sidewalk until my eyes are streaming and my legs and lungs burn together. I don't even know where I'm going until I get there, slipping past the rod iron gate and into the cool, lush grass.

Trees spread wide arms above me, sheltering the graveyard in a hushed shadow. I slow my pace at the sight of tombstones, and my pounding heart returns to normal. My legs feel weak and rubbery as I make my way to their tombstone, sinking down into the mossy ground before my parents' names.

I touch the granite, praying for some memory that would remind me to be smarter. Saner. Trying to think of one piece of relationship advice either one of them ever gave me.

I remember one day years ago, my mom trimming a pot of impatiens on the front porch, her knees and hands dirty from a day in the yard. I'd spent the whole day following her around, plying her for tips on boys. She'd mostly been stoic, letting me wax on ad nauseum about my crush of the moment. I'd been fourteen years old.

"_How will I know?" I asked, all dramatic sighs and sparkly lip gloss. "How am I supposed to pick?"_

_She'd finally relented then, looking up at me with a wry grin. "You're not supposed to pick now, Elena. You're fourteen. But when you __do__ pick, find a guy who makes you laugh."_

"_Seriously, Mom? That's your advice? A funny guy?"_

_She'd shrugged, shaking hear head. "Hey, you asked. And trust me, laughing is important. Life will give you too many reasons to cry."_

I smirk at the cruel irony of those words, a haunting promise that I'd scoffed away then. My fingers dip into the letters of my mother's name while my mind naturally spins through the _countless_ times Damon's made me laugh, discarding each one as quickly as I consider it. My parents would never want me with Damon. Not ever.

No amount of laughter will make him the _right_ choice.

And no amount of logic seems to make any other choice possible.

The wind rushes low and I feel a deep, low ache through my chest. An emptiness. And I'm not stupid enough to wonder why that emptiness is shaped like Damon's smile.

My eyes go hot and blurry and I curl my fingers into fists in the grass, willing myself to breathe. To survive this. Damon's not coming back. And I'd better get my head around that right now.

I hear a strange cry, a thin cawing that seems to cut through my skin and straight to my heart. A feathery rush joins the cawing and I whirl around to see a single crow settling onto a nearby tombstone.

My memory flickers, to a strange fog and a black bird and my heart pounding crazy hard just like it is right now.

"Hi bird," I say, an echo of myself more than a year ago.

And somehow, insanely, I think he was there. Damon. Watching me even then.

"You're losing it," I say, bringing a shaking hand to my forehead as my tears finally spill.

"Elena?"

I jump so hard I nearly leave my skin, but it's not him. It's Jeremy. At the road, I see Ric in his car, brow furrowed and arms crossed. Jeremy's inching towards me like I'm an injured animal. And maybe I am, slinking off to this dark place to lick my wounds in peace.

"I'm sorry," I say, trying for a smile. "I didn't mean to disappear…"

"Look, it's okay. If the video games are—

"It's not the video games," I cry, turning away because I can't bear looking at him and thinking this. How can I look at him, of all people, and have _this_ in my heart for Damon.

What kind of evil is in me that I could lo—No. No, it can't be that. It's already too big. So big that even the thought of his eyes makes my breath catch up in my throat. And he's gone. Gone forever and I can't spend the rest of my life only half-living because I'm stuck on someone I can't ever have. Someone it probably never would have worked with anyway.

"Elena," Jeremy says, touching my shoulder, bringing my focuse back. There's no disguising the fear in his eyes. "Tell me what this is. Tell me what's going on."

"I can't," I say, shaking my head fiercely. "It's stupid. Crazy and stupid and wrong. So damned wrong."

"What's _wrong_?" he asks, and then he grabs my arms. "And don't you dare shut me out because you are all I've got, Elena. Don't treat me like I can't handle whatever this is."

"_This_ isn't anything," I cry, voice hitching. "This isn't even worth a conversation because, because he's not coming back. He's not coming back."

I wish I could take them back, every one of the words that just bubbled out of me. I wish I could reverse time and stop my heart and go back to the good sister I once was. But I can't. So I sit there and watch my brother realize I'm talking about the man who killed him. That I'm broken and _crying_ over the person who tried to _end him._

"Damon," he says softly, his voice a sigh that makes me sob. Because he's not even surprised. He suspected this all along.

"I'm sorry," I tell him. "I'm so sorry, Jer. I don't know—

"Stop," he says, waving off my apologies with a look of shock. "You don't get to apologize for this."

"He _killed_ you Jeremy," I say, because I can't forget that. I can't for one second of one minute let myself think that kind of evil doesn't exist in him.

"And I lived," Jeremy says. When I roll my eyes, he shakes his head. "Our world doesn't work like everyone else's. It just doesn't, Elena. Not anymore."

"That's not the point, Jer," I tell him, crossing my arms, willing myself to believe it. "Wrong is wrong."

"Not for them, it's not. Being with Anna taught me that. Yeah, Damon was an outrageous asshole and did unthinkable things, but hell, so has Caroline. Even with all of us here to support her, she couldn't always stop herself. It's not black and white to them. They're wired in ways we can't comprehend."

The silence between us speaks of Stefan's rampage. Of the wake of blood and death he left behind.

"That's not enough," I say stubbornly. Because it _shouldn't_ be enough. It just shouldn't.

Jeremy just shrugs, affecting that easy smile that's flipped him from 'Elena's kid brother' into 'Hottie Heartbreaker' in one short summer. "It's enough for me."

And then he shakes his head and gives me a look that's decades too old for his sixteen years. "Jesus, Elena, why are you so damned afraid of your own heart?"

And I open my mouth to argue, but I can't. I only cry harder. And he pulls me in, hugging me until I can breathe again, until my sobs go quiet and my heart feels still.

"Better?" he asks.

"Better," I say.

My eyes travel up the hill, to our history-teaching, vampire-slaying, pseudo-stepdad who's watching us with worry etched across his feature. Caroline arrives behind him, blurring to a stop and chattering in a high, anxious voice until Alaric points and they both simmer down.

I scoff, smacking Jeremy's arm. "You let _Caroline _come?"

"I let your best friend come," he corrects, slinging an arm around my shoulders as we head slowly towards the car. "Who happens to be dating a werewolf with a great sense of smell."

I wince as Tyler arrives, looking winded but relieved.

"Do..do they know about…" I trail off, because I can't finish. Hell, I wouldn't even know what words to use.

Jeremy just nods, his expression careful. "We've all known to some degree, but Caroline's had you pegged since he fed you his blood. Before...before all of it, really."

Caroline. God, Caroline. How could I—

She moves down the hill towards me, looking relieved.

I watch her, feeling my face crumple. "Care—

She pulls me into a breathless embrace, squeezing me in a hug that smells like lip gloss and pink lemonade. "Oh, save it. I'm living out my own personal Underworld, here. With Tyler freaking Lockwood. Do you remember how much we hated Tyler?"

We share a laugh and then we are surrounded. I am folded in one set of arms after the next. They press me in, tucking me under their chins and into the safety of their love.

And it almost feels like home.

Almost.

**DAY 62 – DAMON'S POV**

I sit on her roof and look long and hard at the limb above my head. It'd do the job. Or I could fling off my ring and drink until I pass out cold. The sun would take care of the rest in three or four hours.

I've really become one morbid mother fucker.

Below me, she's sleeping. Or at least I assume she's sleeping. I can't quite make out her heartbeat over all the night noise, but she hasn't moved in at least an hour. Jeremy tucked in even earlier, after a seriously disturbing argument with a two dead vampires. Yeah. I gotta say, that kid's got even worse luck with women than I do.

Ric, too, is here, snoring softly on the couch while ESPN drones on in the background. There are Chinese leftovers on the counter and messages on the corkboard, and it's all so damned domestic, I feel like I should bake an apple pie or scratch a dog's ears.

There's only one thing that doesn't make sense.

Where the hell is my brother?

The boarding house was like a fucking tomb when I slid in an hour ago. Stefan's room still looked like an eighty-five year old woman's coffee table. Since God knows he wouldn't leave his precious knick-knacks behind, so he can't be far.

I figured they were out together, but baby brother hasn't been here tonight. I'd smell his particular blend of cheap cologne and self-loathing anywhere. Unless of course, he's downwind, sneaking his way over the other side of the roof to stake me in my drunken stupor.

I'm cool with that. I could use a good staking.

Elena's shifts in bed beneath me. I sit up silently, the song of cicadas pressing in around me as I listen to her bare feet hitting the ground.

Midnight munchies? Pee break?

No.

No, she's coming for the window.

I move to a crouch, resting light on the balls of my feet. I could jump from here and she'd never know. I could bolt right now before she even has the chance to stick her head out and look up. But then the wind carries her smell to me and I'm done for.

Cupids with violins are probably dancing in heart-shaped clouds above my head.

The window opens, and I see the curl of her fingers over the ledge. She doesn't lean out there. Just takes a breath and seems to hold it for a second.

"Where are you?" she asks.

She's wide awake. It's crystal clear that she hasn't been sleeping. And somehow, in the pit of my fucking gut, I know she's not asking about Stefan. She's asking about me.

For a second, I think I'll jump and run. And then I remember I have no spine with this girl, so I slide into her window. And she's whirling to look at me, hand on her throat and heart pounding so hard I want to tell her to sit down before she hurts herself.

She looks at me and I look at her. And I hate the word epic more than any word on this damned planet, but it's the only one that comes close to describing the shit that's going on between us. I feel her gaze right down into my bones, through my mind and my heart, sinking into places I didn't even know I had. I could write a book, a whole fucking _series_ on the look that's passing between us right now.

I remind myself not to pounce her, and it's not easy. I can feel the heat coming off of her from here, and the way she smells…God, I'm like Yogi Bear following the scent of a good pie.

We don't say a damned thing, but we both start inching closer to the center of her room, our eyes flashing and the air so charged I'm surprised shit doesn't start catching fire.

And she's going to speak. She's opening her mouth and fuck, she's going to say something. Something that will ruin this moment and leave me gutted like a catfish in her prissy little bedroom. Again.

I hold up my hand, half-begging for her silence, scrambling for something, anything to say.

"Elena, I—

"Don't," she says, her voice a hard, low warning. She advances on me fast, eyes flashing dangerously as she shakes her head. "Don't you say a damned thing."

She palms my face with both hands and takes a breath that leaves me weak-kneed. And I remind myself that any second now it'll be Stefan, sweet Stefan, and I'll be relegated to some dark, dirty corner of her trip down Bad-Girl Boulevard and I can't fucking do this again.

I've got nothing left to do this with, so like the pathetic little piece of shit coward I am, I bolt. Backwards out the window.

I hit the ground below her room and hear her swear.

"Dammit, Damon, wait!"

_Go! Just go, you fucking idiot! _

I don't go. And it's a good damn thing because the next thing I know, she's falling out of the window. No, not falling. _Jumping_.

I catch her, bridal style, and we share a brief look of utter shock. And then I dump her on her ass and glower at her

"Are you fucking insane?" I roar.

"You're one to talk!" she says, clambering to her feet. "Sneaking around my house – Alaric could have killed you!"

"With what, the remote control?"

"He has stakes!"

"Using weapons requires consciousness!"

"God, I can't believe you," she says, plowing her hands through her hair. "You show up here all smug and irritating like you didn't just up and disappear!"

She's crossing her arms and shivering a little, though it's got to be at least seventy-two degrees out here. But still, she's got goose bumps on her arms and I want to offer my coat, because I did grow a uterus, apparently. And maybe a set of ovaries too.

"Where have you been, Damon?" she asks, and her voice is small. Almost broken. It breaks bits of me, too.

I'm just this side of falling all over myself apologizing when I remember the one bit of power I have left. The one bit of sanity.

"Where's Stefan?" I ask, my words snapping like teeth.

"I don't know," she says, shaking her head. "And that's not important."

I laugh. "It's the only fucking thing that _is_ important, isn't it?"

And then she just looks pissed. Pissed and confused and impatient all rolled into one. "This isn't about Stefan."

I laugh then, stepping back. "It's always about Stefan, Elena. You could do a finger-painting of dancing hippos and somehow it would represent the soulful nature of my brother's—"

"I'm not with Stefan anymore!"

"—eyes and—Wait a minute. What did you just say?"

She rolls her eyes and strides over to me, looking hotter than ten levels of hell. "I said I'm _not_ with Stefan."

Did she say that? Did she actually say that?

"Not with him physically? Or geographically?" I can't help but ask.

"Not with him in any way," she says softly.

I touch her face, because if I don't touch her right this second, I will explode. Come right out of my fucking skin. Her skin is like satin. Her eyes flutter closed and the clouds rumble ominously overhead.

I try to find something to say, but there just isn't a damned thing that works. And when her hands reach for me, fingers trembling at my hips, I think that says plenty.

She looks at me and my whole world shrinks down to the curve of her lips and the warmth in her eyes.

"Tell me this isn't another one of your ten minute break-ups," I manage, but I sound twice as breathless as I feel.

She doesn't bother to answer me. I can see she has other things to say, things that are going to change everything.

"I said you'd lost me forever," she whispers. "I said I hated you. I said it would always be Stefan. I said so many things, and I believed them with every ounce of my soul. And my soul was wrong."

My shoulders go tense, a muscle in my jaw jumping as lightning streaks from one cloud to the next. "So, maybe you shouldn't trust it now."

"Maybe I shouldn't," she says, and when I laugh and drop my hands away from her, she curls her fingers in my jeans, holding me fast.

Rain is starting to fall, pattering us with tiny drops as she looks up at me. "I don't care rather or not I should trust it. I only care about one thing right now, Damon."

"What's that?"

"You."

Her lips hit mine as the sky opens. It is wetter than wet and colder than cold and my jacket and boots are both as good as trash now and I don't fucking care about _any_ of it.

Elena is kissing me. And I've never, not once in my life, been kissed like this.

Her mouth is as soft as her fingers, exploring me with careful, almost reverent attention. Her heart is racing and the wind is howling, but her kiss is slower and deeper than time.

My hands are in the tangled wet mess of her hair, sliding down her slippery arms and then over the curve of her ass. And it's better than blood and sex rolled up in a wad of thousand dollar bills. Kissing Elena like this is better than being _alive_.

I pull free of her lips as lightning crashes nearby, making her shudder.

"We need to get you inside," I pant at her.

"No. Don't stop," she whispers, mouth on my throat, hands skimming under my shirt until my vision blurs.

We kiss again and the energy shifts. It's all kinetic heat now, every one of her touches leave me hungry for more. And with the way she's squirming against my thigh, I'm pretty sure she's feeling the same.

I cup her breasts through the shirt she's wearing like a second skin, pressing a kiss to the tender flesh behind her ear. That little move gets a hell of a response. I feel her body shudder under my lips and then she's working at the fly of my jeans. She's fumbling and trembling and I'm pretty sure I'm going to fuck her right here in her muddy front yard in front of God and everybody who might care to look out their window.

She finally gets her fingers around my cock and I let out a sound that I'm not sure I've made since the first time I saw a woman naked.

"Wait," I say, and she looks up at me, swollen lips and hungry eyes.

She has got to be the most gorgeous thing I've ever seen.

"I've waited long enough," she says.

"No argument here," I say, and then I wrap both arms around her, leaping us through her bedroom window.

Thunder crashes and the electricity blows, leaving us bathed in the flickering blue of lightning flashes. She shivers against me as I drop my coat to the ground.

"You're cold," I say, kissing her mouth, her neck. Peeling her soaked shirt off of her.

"Not cold," she says, pulling at my shirt. I fling it off, kicking off my boots aside as I kiss a trail down her neck.

We move back and forth, stripping clothes away until there's nothing left between us but shadows and light. I catch glimpses of her perfection, and she's beyond beautiful. I need new words for what this girl is. New languages, maybe.

"Here," she says, shyly, pulling me down into that girly bed of hers.

I can smell her in the sheets and taste her in the air and this is paradise. Something better than that, even.

She parts her legs and shifts me between them and then her hands are on my face and she's watching me with an expression I never dreamed she'd wear for me. I kiss her palm and stare at her in wonder.

"We don't have to do this," I breathe, poised at her entrance, feeling the hot press of her thighs at my hips.

"You could stop?" she asks, brows arched in surprise.

"Uh, it wouldn't be my first choice," I say, and she laughs.

And there it is. _Right there_. That smile. That low, sweet laugh. I _know_, know it in the marrow of my fucking bones, that no one's gotten this part of her but me. This bit is _mine_.

She squirms a little, her slick heat pressing against the tip of my cock. I groan and bite my lip and she looks up at me, a satisfied little smirk on her face.

"Testing my resolve?" I tease her.

"Maybe," she says, rolling her hips again. I curl my fingers in the sheets and clench my teeth. She smirks. "How's it holding up?"

"It's not," I laugh. "White flag is flying. Towel is tossed in."

She laughs again and I kiss her softly, feeling her fingers at my jaw, trailing into my hair. And she's urging me forward with soft sounds, but I'm holding back, stretching this moment out as long as I can. Knowing this is as close to heaven as I'll ever fucking get.

"Elena," I say, and she's arching her back, getting impatient.

"I'm sure, Damon," she says, nibbling at my jaw as I stroke the back of one silky thigh. "I'm sure."

"Look at me," I say, and when she does, I let go.

I am lost from moment one in this girl. She curls around me like a ribbon, wrapping me up in the gift of her sweet cries and soft touch. And fuck is she doesn't fit me like we were made to be a set, a matched pair with all the parts and pieces perfectly aligned.

I'm reduced to nothing but long groans and sighs, sounds she tries to hush with shaking fingers pressed to my lips. And then I'm the one hushing her, kissing away the moans she releases when I stroke her breasts or angle her hips to hit her in the right places.

I wish to God I could stop time, stretch this whole night out into eternity. I wish I'd die right here and now so I'd never have to know another moment outside of her, it is that fucking perfect.

I flip her over, putting her on top so that her dark hair rains down over us. It isn't long before we're both close, her breath coming in short, hard pants. I hear her say something, something so low and breathy that I can barely make it out. I kiss her breasts, her neck, the hollow beneath her jaw and finally, I hear her.

"…you, love you, love you," she says, looking down at me.

"I love you," she breathes softly, eyes wet and hands pressed to my cheeks.

It is more than any part of me can take.

I come so fast and hard that being gagged and strangled wouldn't keep my groan buried. Elena watches me until her own climax rolls through her in a series of waves that leave her crying my name.

We lie there afterwards, tangled into strange shapes beneath her sheets. And I stroke her hair and listen to the storm slowly roll away, praying to every god who might be inclined to listen. I swear I will save orphans from burning buildings, help little old ladies cross streets…I will do anything, _anything_ if I can just stay here a little longer.

"Are you uncomfortable?" she asks sleepily, interrupting my silent prayers.

I smile into the top of her hair. "No."

"You sure?"

"I'll bite you if you move."

She laughs again. _My_ laugh. And I close my eyes and cross my arms over her back, grinning like a fucking lunatic at the ceiling. For the first time in more years than I can count, there isn't a single thing I would change about my life. Not one damned thing.

-TBC-


	12. Chapter 12

*DISCLAIMER* I don't own it. None of it. But I really had fun playing with this universe and am so grateful to all TPTB for creating this amazing universe and these characters.

_***A/N: So, this is it. Just a very short little wrap-up, epilogue to glimpse the future for our couple. And while I usually hold some angst into the bitter end, this one is primarily fluffy fun. I really, *really* hope it works for you. The road in this fic was SO painful for them that I felt the joy had to be just as big. I toyed with it a few different ways, and this is the only thing that felt right. And the final scene is silly, but I couldn't resist it. So, yep, I'm worried sick about letting you all down, but there it is. It just doesn't work any other way for me. And there are much larger time jumps – so check the tags!**_

_**I want to take a minute to thank every person who reviewed Slow Burn Summer. I've laughed and "aww'ed" and teared up at so many of the unbelievably sweet comments you've left me. You people rock so hard that despite a crazy busy home and writing life, I don't think I can abandon this couple. I don't have time for fic anymore, I really don't, but you make me want to write. You make them irresistible.**_

_**Anyhow, to those who I've heard from all along, I ADORE YOU. Please leave me one last review – I wait with bated breath to see your thoughts and I will miss them and you so much. *sob* And if I haven't heard from you, please, please take one moment to review now. Cuz this is it.**_

_**Lastly, if you have any requests –ESPECIALLY for one-shot, short ideas- please let know. I'd like to put out a few shorter pieces before I dive into another long one. I can't promise to tackle everything thrown my way, but you never know when something can strike inspiration!**_

_**Thanks again for everything. I so hope you're pleased with the Happily Ever After. This has been an amazing ride for me – and I'm so grateful to have had so many supportive readers with me. *hug***_

***SIX WEEKS AFTER THAT NIGHT – ELENA'S POV***

Caroline warned me this would happen weeks ago. She said it was totally inevitable and I'd better start planning for how the hell I was going to deal with it. And somewhere deep inside, I knew she was right. I knew it, but I tried not to think about it.

Truthfully, I didn't have to try very hard.

I haven't thought about much of anything but Damon for the last several weeks. Damon making me chocolate chip waffles, or stealing the remote control, or driving to Walmart at two in the morning, because I felt like ice cream, and then kissing me in between bites until the sun was a pink stain in the eastern sky.

It's easy to not think with Damon. Hell, almost _everything_ with him is easy. And since he's one of the most difficult people I know, I have no idea how that's possible.

So, no, I didn't think about Stefan coming home from his little vision quest, or whatever it was he was doing, not even when we pulled into the boarding house driveway five minutes ago. We stopped by to pick up mail on our way to the Grill, and we were talking a mile a minute, arguing about the sexual overtures in old animated Disney movies, and then—

Well, then, I thought about Stefan coming home.

Because he _was_ home.

Stefan is looking up at us from the couch in the boarding house, pale and tense and smiling so tightly I'm sure his face will break. And I'm smiling back, that perfect, plastic smile that doesn't touch my eyes at all. All I can think about is Damon's hand in mine, our fingers tightly interlaced not two feet from Stefan's nose.

"Hi," I finally manage.

"Hey," Stefan says.

And Damon says nothing. I'd look at him to try to gauge his reaction, but I feel like I've been turned to stone.

"So, you're back from your uh…" I'm not sure what to say here. Sojourn? Desert wandering? Spiritual Journey? I don't say anything. I just trail off into nothing and squeeze Damon's hand. _Hard._ Like, would-you-freaking-_say_-something hard.

Stefan eventually swallows thickly. "Yeah, uh, I just got back."

"Right," I say.

"Well," Damon _finally_ says, blowing out a little puff of air. "I'm glad this isn't awkward as all hell."

It doesn't exactly _break_ the ice, but I feel it give a little, loosening my ribs just enough to let me breathe right. That's Damon for you. He doesn't ignore the elephant in the room. He puts it in a tutu and waltzes it around, until no one can do anything _but_ laugh. I look at him then, biting back a smile.

His lips don't move, but I see the happiness in his eyes.

And just like that, I know this is okay. This isn't a _thing_. I mean, for Stefan it's a thing. But not for us. Maybe we're too smart to go there. Or maybe we've just been through too much crap to bother.

Damon shrugs a shoulder and releases my hand, sliding his fingertips along my palm. "I should probably run upstairs. Pretend to look for something so you guys can have a strained post-breakup conversation," he says with a smirk. And then he pauses, tipping his head towards Stefan. "Unless you want to throw each other around the room."

"We did that not too long ago," Stefan says, half-smiling.

"Right. Wasn't exactly my best day," Damon says, casting a brief guilty look towards me.

Stefan nods. He doesn't say that this probably isn't his, but I guess that's pretty obvious.

"I'll be somewhere else," Damon says, and then he smiles at me and walks towards the stairs. He doesn't look back. I love him so much in that moment, because he doesn't _need_ to look back.

"Damon," Stefan calls, and Damon's at the top of the stairs then, obviously surprised by his brother's voice.

He pauses, not quite looking at Stefan, but not quite looking away either.

"Thank you," Stefan says. "For your letters. They…helped."

Letters? I feel the threat of tears in my eyes when Damon ducks his head, clearly embarrassed. And then he disappears into his room, to give us time.

"He wrote you letters," I say softly.

"Every week," Stefan says just as quietly. "He used to be quite the pen pal. When he left for the war, I'd get sometimes two and three letters at a time."

We share a smile, but there's no missing the pain in his eyes. "Did you know?" I ask him, taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch. "Did he tell you about…"

"About the two of you?" Stefan tilts his head left and right, like he's weighing out his answer. "Not in exactly those words. But I got the picture."

"I'm sorry," I say, though I'm really not. And I'm not this apologetic girl anymore, so I look up, trying to be more clear. More honest. "I'm not sorry I'm with him. But I wish it didn't hurt you."

"I know," he says. "And I'm good with it."

Off my dubious look, he amends that. "Well, maybe not _good_. But I get it. I know what it's like to be loved by Damon. And he loves you more than he's ever loved anyone."

I open my mouth to retort, but that seems stupid and wasted. He does love me more than anyone. I feel it in every look and every touch. And Stefan's right. There is nothing in this world quite like being loved by Damon Salvatore.

"Are you going to be able to handle this?" I ask him, because, frankly, someone has to. We can't dance around this forever. "Are you back to stay?"

He shakes his head. "Maybe for a week," he says. "But after that, I'm heading out."

"Just a week?"

He smiles and looks down at my hand, the hand Damon was holding when we arrived. "I'm not sure I'm ready for much more than that. Besides, I need to find Katherine."

I feel the blood drain from my face. "Katherine."

He nods, looking distant. Conflicted. "She followed me. When I was with Klaus. And she saved my brother. I don't think she has anyone else, to be honest."

"But…I mean, she's Katherine. Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"No," he admits, and then for the first time in maybe ever, I see the resemblance to Damon. I see the brotherhood in the wry, self-depreciating grin he's wearing. "But I don't think I can live with myself if I don't try. And I'm always better when I'm saving someone."

"She has to want to be saved, Stefan. You're the one who told me she was pure evil."

"She loves me," he says. "It's strange, but it's not evil, so it's something."

I shake my head. "You can't honestly think that her _loving you_ is going to change anything."

"It changed Damon," Stefan says, eyes flicking towards the stairs.

And I don't say anything to that. Not anything at all.

We sit in quiet silence for awhile, and then I look up, seeing the clarity in his eyes. The set of his shoulders which looks for once more relaxed than tortured.

"You look good," I tell him. "You're figuring this out."

"Yeah?" he asks, smirking in an odd way. "Took me long enough."

"Well, Salvatore men tend to be late bloomers," I say breezily.

And he laughs at that. We aren't exactly friends now. I know that. But we're something like it. And that's good enough for me.

***6 MONTHS AFTER THAT NIGHT – DAMON'S POV**

I don't ring the bell. Hell, I haven't rung the bell at this house in months, but Ric answers the door anyway, scotch in hand and brow arched. Oh, yeah. The little asshole has probably been planning this _all_ day.

"Ric," I say and my voice is a low warning.

One he doesn't give two shits about clearly, because he blocks the door with his big, lumberjack shoulders and looks out over the trees, like he's deeply in thought.

"You know, Elena's a special girl," he says at length.

"Uh huh."

"Young. Impressionable," Ric says slowly, completely ignoring me. "Beautiful, of course, but I'm sure you've noticed that part."

"Are you serious with this?"

He swirls his scotch and furrows his brow for all its worth. "I just thought you and I should have a little _chat_ before you take her out. Man to man."

Oh, he's serious alright. Seriously about to get his ass kicked. And he knows it, too, because I can see the laugh about to burst out of him. But he keeps that solemn, fatherly tone nonetheless.

"You do realize you're a little old to be dating my not-stepdaughter, don't you?" he says, and he's starting to crack, grin slipping through.

"You do realize your head's coming off at the shoulders if you don't get your ass out of my way."

"Alright, alright," he says, stepping back.

But then his eyes do a quick sweep down the length of my suit, all the way down to my shiny black shoes. And I know it's coming before he opens his mouth.

"Nice tux, _Edward_."

I lunge for him, corsage box flying from my hands. He bolts back into the house, cracking up. I'm vaulting the kitchen counter, one hand already around his neck when she clears her throat from the kitchen doorway.

"Do you think we could save the wrestling match for after prom?"

I see red. Not because I'm pissed, but because that's what she's wearing, a strapless, crimson thing that clings to her waist and floats around her legs. No sequins or bling, just softly draped silk in a color that makes my mouth water. In more ways than one.

Ric gurgles, reminding me that I'm actually still strangling him. I pull my hand away, sparing him the briefest look of apology before I'm staring at her again. Transfixed.

"You look beautiful, Elena," he rasps out.

I need a word. Any word. Stunning? Gorgeous? Breathtaking? Nope, none of them are good enough. When she refused to let me take her to New York for a dress, I'd expected a hundred yards of taffeta hell, some sparkly confection that I'd tease her about for the next twenty years. Now I can barely keep my jaw off the floor.

Ric gives me a little shove between the shoulder blades and I realize I've been standing here gaping mutely since she arrived. I walk up to her, taking her hands and giving her an obvious once over.

"Well, I guess if this is the best you can do," I say with a mock shrug.

She just laughs at me, with her soft eyes and almost unbearable beauty.

Then I kiss her neck, just beneath her ear where I won't smudge the make-up she doesn't need, but obviously spent time on. "I'm speechless, Elena. Really."

"Me too," she says, smiling as she runs her hand down my jacket lapel. "Then again, you've always cleaned up nice. Even back when you were a smug bastard."

"What can I say? It's a talent."

"Cleaning up or being a bastard?" she teases.

"Touch'e. Alright, goddess of mine, are you ready for all of this?"

"Do I get a corsage for my senior prom?" she asks, lips curled in amusement as her eyes flick to the upside down plastic box under the kitchen table.

"Yeah, that. Ric's so clumsy," I shrug.

"Mm hm," she smirks, toying with my collar.

"He should really talk to a doctor about that. He _is_ getting older."

"He's also still standing _right here_," Ric says, but he ducks under the table anyway, handing me the box.

"Here, take some pictures," Elena says, handing over the camera as I'm strapping orchids to her wrist. She's always ready with that sort of thing. Always the one to pack the lunch or make the reservations. Or remember the damned camera.

We pose and preen until I'm sure I'll see spots in my vision for the next two months. And I still can't believe I'm going to a fucking _prom_, but…it is what it is. What my girl wants, she gets.

"Okay, since I'm blind can we go?" I whine after another snapshot of us with our heads tilted in like idiots.

"Yes," Elena says, picking up the smallest purse I've ever seen in my life. What the hell does she have in that thing? A book of matches? Half a toothpick?

"Where are you headed?" Ric asks.

"Dinner," I say, rubbing my hands together and winking at Elena. "And trust me, I have pulled out all the stops, so it's going to rock your world. After that, I thought a walk through downtown, maybe a drive out to the coast."

"Um, _prom_, Damon. We will need to make an appearance."

I pull a face. "We can't skip that part? I mean, we got the pictures."

"We're going," she says airily, plucking a wispy shawl off the chair and sliding it around her shoulders. "Everybody's there. Jeremy and Bonnie and Tyler and Caroline."

"Um, _exactly_," I say in a sing-song replica of her, rolling my eyes.

"We're going," she repeats, applying a touch of gloss to her bottom lip.

"Fine. Can I eat a teacher?"

"No."

"Bite one?"

"No."

"Spike the punch?"

She cuts her eyes to me. "Maybe."

Ric clears his throat and straightens his tie. "You do realize I'm chaperoning this event?"

I sling an arm around Elena's shoulders. "I think it might be a little late to keep me in line."

We slip outside, promising to see Ric later at the dance. I walk her to my newest vehicle, a cherry red 1969 Mustang Fastback. I bought the car because it looks like sex on black tires. Plus, watching Elena stroke her hands up and down the hood, oooh'ing and aaah'ing was better than porn.

"Thanks for picking my favorite color," I say, glancing down at her dress.

"Please," she smirks. "This isn't for you. I wanted to match the car."

I laugh and she curls her fingers in my jacket, looking up at me with puppy eyes and a little pout on her lips.

"Stick that lip out a little farther," I tease her.

She does and I kiss her once. Twice. I just can't help it. And I pull back now, because if I don't, I'm going to drag her back into that house so I can push that dress up to her hips and take her against some random wall.

_Later_, I remind myself. She didn't get all gussied up so I could nail her quick and hard. And that dress is exquisite. Probably cost her a small fortune. Come to think of it, I'm starting to wonder if she splurged on new goodies _underneath_, too.

"You thinking about sex?" she asks, crossing her arms.

"Well, I _am_ awake," I say, but then I take her waist and pull her closer. Close enough that I can feather my lips over the hollow of her throat. "Actually, I'm wondering what you've got on under this little frock."

Her hands slide inside my jacket, fingers tracing their way up to my chest. "Nothing special. Black. Tiny. Too expensive. You'll probably hate it."

"I'll bet," I breathe, and now we're both going downhill fast.

I ease a knee between her thighs and she's dragging her fingernails lightly over my zipper. We're breathing so hard we could do voiceovers for sex scenes. Appropriate, since we're about to play one out on the hood of my Mustang.

"Damon?" she asks, all low and husky.

"Yeah?" I reply, eyes at half-mast and hands searching for a way into her dress.

"Can I drive?"

I pull back, grinning and shaking my head. And she just smirks, clearly proud of her little ruse.

"Manipulation, ulterior motives…you're coming along nicely, Elena," I tell her.

She just grins, eyes sparking with mischief. "So, is that a yes?"

I toss her the keys without hesitation. "Baby, you can take me anywhere."

"Good," she says, and then she kisses me quick and hard. "Because I plan to take you _everywhere_."

THE END


End file.
